Thread: 3.1 PLD changes look good

it would make sens to me if rage of the halone got potency higher : 300 like war and drk.
if they don't change the direction of the next raid off course.
Pld stun/cover exept if the pld is OT is almost useless in the current raid,
The shield swipe in CD is a good news

Cross-class skills maybe need looking at. The only "had to have it" of 2.x was Stoneskin and even that is a bit redundant, Cure is outright pointless, Protect - again redundant, and what Paladin slots out-of-combat Raise on their hotbar? Even MRD contributes very little to PLD - Bloodbath on a tank with no AOE damage is just sad, Foresight is useful against... AA right now? Which our Shield kind of handles. Mercy Stroke is just free damage or to pad your dummy parse in most cases since it rarely lands for a heal even in dungeons...

Seriously pick two classes;
Archer: Raging Strikes (20% Damage), Straight Shot (10% Crit)
Pugilist: Internal Release (10% Crit), Second Wind (HP Instant), Featherfoot (Evade 12%)
Lancer: Blood for Blood (Damage), Invigorate (400 TP), Feint (Slow), Keen Flurry (40% Parry)

Personally would kill for Lancer, and Pugilist as sub-classes to snag Invigorate, Internal Release, and Blood for Blood on Paladin simply because it would make sustaining our spike DPS & OT DPS possible.
Archer would seem funny but 20% damage stacked on with every other Fight or Flight while popping up extra Crit regularly could be a big gain for Paladin too.

Why does Paladin even get Protect, Cure, and Raise as potential secondaries - hell I'd much rather take Stone for the gravity effect.

Blah.

I too feel the Paladin Crossclasses are the weak spot. They have Conjuror mostly for RP/Lore reasons. Stoneskin has limited use but that's about the only useful thing, and with Clemency on the table now Stoneskin has less applications than before.

Marauder is fine, but honestly if they -must- keep Conjuror for lore/series reasons I'd rather they drop Marauder for either Lancer or -Rogue-. Foresight, Bloodbath and Mercy Stroke are okay but very minimal tools - only Foresight would be a noticeable loss really and that's a very underpowered cooldown (and it's not like Paladins suck at Physical Mitigation without it).

Rogue is a class no other Job can use the crossclasses on, and would give Paladins access to Goad (yay for some raid-dps-increasing utility), Shade Shift (a self 20% stoneskin, scaling with max health - a perfect paladin tool) and Death Blossom - which is really poor but actually gives Paladins a weak but spammable AOE attack if they need it.

Couple the fact that Gladiators are kind of skilled with shortswords and Daggers, similar to Rogues, and it feels like those class skills would be much more appropriate. Failing that, Lancer offers Invigorate to truly solve the TP starvation issues, Blood for Blood to be used carefully when offtanking for DPS, and Keen Flurry which is a pretty poopy tank cooldown but likely no worse than Foresight in practise.

My ideal Paladin would use Marauder and Rogue crossclasses, but Conjuror/Rogue and Conjuror/Lancer would both be preferable to the current option in my opinion if CNJ is so vital to the lore.

Rogue cross is OP. It was more OP in 2.0 but it'd still be crazy strong. It is true though that paladin has like maybe the worst cross class selection of all time. This double sucks since its crossclass was kind of rad in 1.0.

For starters, Fracture needs a buff. From what i've read, WARs aren't even bothering in using it. Why not buff it s that crossed Fracture will yield 300 pot and 500 pot on WAR?

Originally Posted by rawker

For starters, Fracture needs a buff. From what i've read, WARs aren't even bothering in using it. Why not buff it s that crossed Fracture will yield 300 pot and 500 pot on WAR?

They should be, it's a flat DPS increase every time you press it (well...unless you're clipping it super early... you know what I mean). The entire difficulty of WAR comes from maximizing Fracture uptime while balancing offense and defense with stack management. I do agree, though, that Fracture has become largely useless for everyone else and could do with a buff.

Originally Posted by Reynhart

The point of the game is that you CAN play the job you want, not that you HAVE to play the favored job of the month. Again, the fun thing is that, when WAR was "supposed to be" inferior, you didn't see PLDs come and slap you for wanting to be better...

Are you doing progression? Yes. Pick the party setup that min/maxes the best because you are trying to push through content that you arent geared well enough for yet so you can get gear sooner. If you arent on the bleeding edge then the small difference in tanks dont matter because you'll have more than enough DPS. Your DPS should be doing their job, you shouldnt be carrying them.

WAR min/maxed the best because incoming tank damage wasnt remarkable other than it was predominantly magic accross the board and DRK reduces magic damage better than anyone else so AS1 and 4 were cake walks. Looks like it's their time to shine. If they dont design any content around PLD being the better tank because of it's physical mitigation superiority next raid cycle then ill call SE on intentionally leaving PLDs out but for right now you guys are all premature with your criticism.

Originally Posted by ManaKing

If you arent on the bleeding edge then the small difference in tanks dont matter because you'll have more than enough DPS.

Jobs should be equally viable especially on the bleeding edge. Again, no one cares than PLD can do Expert dungeons fine...

Originally Posted by ManaKing

If they dont design any content around PLD being the better tank because of it's physical mitigation superiority next raid cycle then ill call SE on intentionally leaving PLDs out but for right now you guys are all premature with your criticism.

And again, again, designing content for one particular tank is a bad idea. If the next cycle is purely physical, then DRK will be thrown out of the loop, it won't be better on the overall balance.

Originally Posted by Reynhart

And again, again, designing content for one particular tank is a bad idea. If the next cycle is purely physical, then DRK will be thrown out of the loop, it won't be better on the overall balance.

What they need to do is develop the next cycle to have several different types of encounter design. Physical, magical, pure damage check, crazy (but not too crazy) mechanics -- maybe even mix up types, depending on fight phase. That way, you can have all 3 tanks be equally viable.