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_

snip

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_

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.

I immediately dismissed anything that came out of his mouth after that....HONESTLY, does he even play this game at all? Dark Knights are on equal footing with Paladins in almost every single way. In fact, the ever growing general consensus is that Dark Knight is just a re-skinned Paladin that can now do damage. It's absolute bullshit that people somehow think a Dark Knight would be worthless without a shield in more physical fights like Second Coil of Bahamut. I was watching Arthars yesterday and he did two random party finders of Second Coil and Final Coil. Guess what his party composition was for T9.....two DRK, two AST, three DRG and a BLM. They did better than almost every single DF group I've ever seen and most of the PF groups I've been in. Guess what his composition was for T13 when he initially tried it.....two DRK, two SCH, three DRG and I can't remember the last dps role. They did fantastic there too considering the composition of the party, they never beat it, but again, better than almost every single DF group I've been in.....

'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...' WOW. Again, does he even play this game at all? There's never an instance you where you worry about Warrior being garbage and exclude them because they're actually designed properly after 2.1. The content doesn't rule them, EVER. They are just as healthy in a MT position as they are OT. I can not believe that the community is fine with this lip service bullshit "content doesn't fit every job" for anything other than Warrior. In the content where there's so much incoming damage that it destroys a tanks cooldowns.....guess what else is gonna' be a mechanic in that content.....tank swaps (T13, T9 Savage, Ifrit Ex, Titan Ex, T11, T12 anyone?)

The two questions that will be asked in EVERY SINGLE ENCOUNTER are "can you survive tank busters?" and "can you do enough damage to kill the thing?" These questions are tied explicitly to what the job can do based on the content. Content should never be designed around a job that's found to be underperforming in previous encounters because it will only put more emphasis on your weakest designed class needing to be propped up and turned into gilded excrement (a gold plated turd.) This is the ENTIRE reason Paladin is in the shape it's in right now. They've done this shit over and over and over again instead of re-doing the job. Does anyone remember the time they buffed Flash TWICE because the first time didn't help enough.........Band aid fixes. This game is headed down a dark road if they keep making content to suit particular jobs instead of along side them.

Originally Posted by Shining_Tiger_Excalibur

Bunch of ranting.

If all you are focusing on is survivability, PLD does give you better stability in A2S. Their physical mitigation is better and a lot of the damage is physical. HG is really good in A2S. How was Yoshida wrong?

I also don't know why you are referencing T9 and T13 when, even synced, people over-gear the content. Also, unless he recently made and leveled a character on NA, Arthars is a JP player. JP DF players are significantly better than even NA PF in terms of their skill, knowledge, and experience. Of course his groups were better than the garbage DF and PF NA players have.

And Yoshida's point about balancing content wasn't wrong either. I'll go back to a previous example. If one of the next encounters in the next end-game raid tier was greatly simplified by having 2 non-targeted tank immunities, WAR would suddenly be the odd tank out. Do you then buff Holmgang to be on par with HG and LD because WAR is weak in that specific scenario? Of course not. You admit you messed up your raid design and tune future content differently.

If the next end-game raid tier has a lot of AoE heavy fights, SMN, BLM, and MNK would reign supreme. Do you just nerf their AoE damage into the ground to balance DPS classes because of one set of raids? That's incredibly stupid.

And, like I said earlier, PvP still exists in this game. SMN is super overpowered in PvP. Do you nerf SMN into the ground because they're really good in PvP? Of course not. You adjust the PvP only systems like PvP skills to better balance SMN. Healing is way too strong in PvP. Do you nerf healing potencies and efficiency across the board? Hell no.

In fact, we have a few recent examples of SE nerfing things based on specific content. They neutered Holy and Flare because they were too strong on the mass pulls in speed runs. Thankfully, because the nerf had no real impact on anything but speed-runs and FATEs, it wasn't too big a deal. If the nerf had an impact on relevant progression, you can be sure the outrage would be real.

If you want to target raid balance, then the best way to not impact other aspects of the game is to balance through raid design and tuning. If you just buffed PLD across the board (increased potencies, lowered recasts, removed oaths from the GCD, etc.) what type of effect would that have in content where PLD is not under-powered? What type of impact does that have on the entire player-base and not just the tiny percent that is stuck on relevant progression because of PLD?

When I do EX roulette, I do massive pulls on my PLD that I would never dare attempt on my WAR because of HG. On bosses, my healers probably have near 100% DPS up-time because I can just heal myself with clemency (because none of the damage hits hard enough to interrupt) and rotate CDs while staying in SwO. Regen + Fairy is usually more than enough to keep me alive. PLDs are perfectly fine and have their unique strengths in Bismark EX and Ravana EX and who knows how they'll fair in 3.1 content. There is a real risk that buffing PLD based only on their under-performance in Savage would not be proportionally related to their overall strengths in all content.

Originally Posted by Shining_Tiger_Excalibur

snip

A2S --

A2S's world second clear with a PLD was virtually at the same time as the world first clear with a DRK. If people were clearing DPS margins on the first day of Savage release with PLD, you have no argument for why enrage is still an issue now. But this is irrelevant because both my point and Yoshida's still stand. Does PLD actually give your raid better stability? Yes. Are you going to disprove that? So again, PLD has a strength and weakness in relation to A2S. Objectively better survivability vs. Objectively worse DPS. If you don't need the DPS to meet enrage, then PLD is just better than DRK.

T9 and T13 --

No, your point is irrelevant because having highly skilled players with over-gearing says nothing about the strength or balance of a class in progression content. And, objectively, DRK does not do just as good as PLD in physical fights. You cannot argue with facts and math. PLD has better physical mitigation. Disprove that and then you can talk.

Holmgang vs. Living Dead vs. HG --

I said non-targeted immunity. How do you use Holmgang without a target? You can't. So WAR would be left without a usable immunity, would die everytime to the tank buster, and would cease to exist in the raid meta. My point was you don't buff Holmgang -- Holmgang is perfectly fine. You change the design of the raid.

AoE damage balance --

No idea what any of that has to do with the blatant imbalances in how much AoE damage DPS classes do, but okay. I guess you're suggesting that classes be given stuff to deal with their own weaknesses? So instead of nerfing the better AoE DPS classes, according to your example, the weaker ones should be buffed? So, how do you adjust FATEs, dungeons, raids and trials to account for the massive increase in AoE DPS? They already nerfed Holy and Flare. Or, you could just design content like A2S where the weak AoE DPS classes still have a very important role. One solution seems quite a bit better to me.

PvP --

What they've done is they've given PvP its own unique "raid design" with independent balancing in order to separate it from overall class balance in PvE content. You're only proving my point. They didn't make PLD's stun only 3 seconds in PvE content because it was too strong in PvP. You zone into a PvP instance and you are playing a different game which caters to a different rule-set. If you're suggesting that PLDs be made stronger only in Savage, then that is no different from adjusting raid design and tuning to cater to PLD. If you're suggesting that they just buff PLDs regardless of the content, then that is not what is happening when they make contextual adjustments restricted to PvP.

Holy and Flare --

I don't know why you're smiling because they've also been changing dungeon design to counter AoE. Ever wonder why old dungeons had massive pulls (Brayflox HM is over in 3~4 pulls, Haukke HM is similar, etc.) when new ones have gates between zones? So no, Dungeons are different than they were before. They just went the extra mile and nerfed Holy and Flare on top of that. In hindsight, did the nerfs to AoE actually stop people from speed-running? Obviously not. Dungeon design has done much more to slow down groups than the Holy and Flare nerfs. That is the point. Could they still buff PLD? They haven't ruled it out. They've just said that they'll adjust raid content as a priority to deal with imbalance, just like what they did to counter speed-runs.

Originally Posted by Brian_

snip

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

Originally Posted by Brian_

I don't disagree with the questioning of SE's competency. I think they're overly confident in their ability to design raid content tuned for tank balance. But, that doesn't mean the practice of balancing through content is flawed or that balancing classes instead is the better option. It's not like they have a great track record with that, either.

Probably not going to get a better summary for this thread than that.

Well, the direction of the last handful of pages at least...