Thread: 3.1 PLD Changes

Great, more regurgitated talking points that people spew out without understanding.

No, you don't understand. Yes, WAR is in a really strong state right now. Yes, they have a lot of great tools for OTing. But, an equally large if not more important reason for why they are brought to raids is because raid designs do not incentivize bringing DRK / PLD at all and heavily incentivize DRK / WAR comps.

If raids were designed in such a way that you absolutely had to have 2 non-targeted immunities, then WAR would disappear from raiding. They would not be a viable option.

Obviously, they will never design something so extremely broken. What I am trying to say is could they design a fight where a PLD / DRK comp could perform just as well as a WAR / DRK comp? Or, at the least, have unique benefits? Yes, they could.

It's irrelevant content now, but earlier in HW when Ravana EX still had some difficulty for a lot of groups, if a group was just constantly failing final liberation, I would switch tank comp to PLD / DRK to LD / HG both preys and simplify the mechanics down to brain-dead levels. Could you still clear with WAR? Yea. After a certain point, they could also just eat the prey even with vulnerability. But, was it easier with PLD / DRK? Yes.

That is the power of raid design. Class balance in any MMO has always been some ratio of encounter design and class design. It's not dissimilar from faction or hero balance in a RTS or MOBA where a large part of the balance is based on map design. All SE has said is that they're going to prioritize balancing through encounter design as opposed to balancing through class design.

Originally Posted by Brian_

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They can balance anything to be like anything. No one is assuming they "can't". But that's not the way they've been designing content, nor does it seem to be the way they want to design the content.


If for example Hallowed ground prevented the need to sacrifice three players like you suggested, allowing for the usage of Lb3 for damage. Who do you think raiders will take?

Players will always take the best/ easiest/ path of least resistance for content.

Somewhere someone is going to get shafted unless all tanks perform equally well MT or OT. They don't, and unless things are changed through utility, dps, and mitigation, they won't.

Alexander doesn't make bringing Pld / DRK comp a good idea because you'd be less optimal to not bring a Warrior to anything with two tank slots. You already said it yourself, they have the tools. Drk and Pld have tools locked behind being an MT. One of those tools Warrior gets to use whenever they want. If DRK or PLD weren't slated as 100% having to MT, and warrior actually had to compete for a slot with them, there wouldn't be an issue.

Originally Posted by Cynric

They can balance anything to be like anything. No one is assuming they "can't". But that's not the way they've been designing content, nor does it seem to be the way they want to design the content.

Q: A lot of those voices are probably from players in savage Alexander where there is a high reliance on tank DPS.

Yoshida: We'll be making effort to eliminate that as much as possible. Within the content, there are strong and weak points to each job. For example, in the second area of savage, a paladin main tank should have higher stability than a dark knight. Depending on the player and their skill level, each party will see different results, but we'd like to reduce the difference. We can't just make adjustments to jobs based on whether they are strong or weak in particular content as that would break the jobs, so we'll work to eliminate disadvantages to certain jobs as much as possible in the content. That doesn't mean we won't be making any adjustments to jobs in the future, but we'd like to also hear feedback after playing through the different content in patch 3.1.

http://www.famitsu.com/news/201511/05092257.html
http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/126...3.1-and-Beyond

His words, not mine.

What is "optimal" is not only dependent on the content, it is also dependent on the players. To this day, I still play PLD in A2S. The other tank is a DRK (and doesn't play multiple tanks like I do). That's not an "optimal" comp. Why doesn't it matter? We have more than enough raid DPS to clear the DPS benchmarks and having 2 immunities eliminates any chance that we will mess up the later waves. We trade the unneeded DPS for significantly better stability just like Yoshi-P detailed.

Another example is A3S where the positioning and strategies for a lot of groups have slight variations because you can handle mechanics in different ways. Again, variance in optimization caused by group individuality and raid tuning.

Another example is A4S. Elysium's world first cleared by carrying Nisi. A lot of the groups that cleared after cheesed it with the more "optimal" strat. Apparently the harder method still worked well enough for that group of players to world first A4S.

What becomes optimal is based on content. And, as Yoshida said, adjusting content only impacts said content. Adjusting classes impacts everything. As such, class balance in relation to raid optimization is better solved through raid design. SMNs are overpowered as hell in PvP. Do you nerf SMNs into the ground to fix this issue? No, because you would also screw over SMNs in PvE. The better solution would be to balance SMN's PvP performance through PvP systems like PvP specific skills and PvP objectives. If there is an overall issue, then maybe you look at tweaking the class.

What strategy people pick is dependent on their available options as well as individual comfort-zones. You just need to tune content well enough that the gap in viability between the different options is close enough that player skill and comfort are enough to swing a decision. So, going back to your question about HG, what option would groups go with? As long as you tuned the DPS gain of LB3 + no weakness to be equal to the loss in raid DPS that PLD also causes, then the choice would come down to preference between balanced pros and cons. That's what it means to properly tune an encounter.

Originally Posted by Brian_

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you bring up some very good, valid points. i honestly do think its more of PLD not fitting will into the current content rather then them being bad, but at the same time SE is not exactly known for making things balanced (the first time it comes out), so if they do make fights designed to make better use of PLDs kit. there is a chance they might not balance it right and all of a sudden DRK would be left out in the rain. (if they do make it like this expect DRK under-powered now threads)

edit: forgot to mention that PLD utility is not as good as WAR and DRK so that is also a thing to consider

@ Brian: I don't think you quite understand. First off there are three tanks. Not two or four. Unless something changes drastically, War will always be the go to off tank, if you propose say a change in which Pld has some sort of advantage , especially with us going into more Physical tank busters soon, you're just making Paladin more wanted than Dark Knight.


This is why we call it bad design. War = OT guaranteed, this shoves Pld and Drk into the MT slots for competition, Drk currently fits with the content. If you shake things up it just changes the problem it doesn't fix the terrible way that tanks are designed.

They want Warrior to OT, they want Pld or Drk to MT. They should all MT/OT equally to some extent, not be forced into MTing or OTing just outright better than the other. To make the issue worse, Paladin and Dark Knight excel in different types of mitigation. Neither of them have utility to make up for being outclassed by the other in the content they fit with better.

DPS + magic mitigation? Drk hands down, Paladins don't get groups. DPS + Physical mitigation meta ? Depending on how much DPS Pld allows a healer to contribute it'll either be PLD > DRK or DRK < PLD.
Yet no matter how much you shake up the meta Warrior is guaranteed the OT slot.

When you have 3 tanks but only 2 of those tanks are actually competing for raid spots there's a balance or design problem.

You used coil as an example.

We didn't have 3 tanks in coil, things were different then. We have 3 tanks now, but they made a terrible design choice in making x tank be MT, x tank be OT, x tank be MT.

When two tanks are designed to main tank and only one is designed to off tank, there's going to be a problem

- Shield oath should be gained at 30, and sword oath at 40
- sword oath should apply a DoT instead of the basic attack buff. It would make switching stances a tad more viable, and it would stack well with goring blade, circle of scorn, and fracture. call it a righteous burn, or something. xD
-Sheltron should block one physical, or magical attack. Too many damn spell casters in the way.
- cover should block magic as well as physical. (what do you mean the fireball went through me!?) Also I should take reduced damage from damage my ally's suppose to take. It's not like I picture a paladin covering with his shield...
- All enmity gaining abilities should get buffed. not in damage, but in enmity gain. That way paladins could still be defensive without fear of losing aggro to off tanks in DPS stance.
- This one is just for me. I want an invisible shield. seems rather dumb, but I want it. xD