PLD abilities

[Ralvenom]

Royal Authority: Sure I use it since it excists, but I've never really seen the point of having DPS only attacks on a tank [...]

Because, like it or hate it, tank dps totally matters -- even if you are the "defense tank".

What's silly to me is that PLD players are always whining about what essentially constitutes doing their job. Good performance of the tank role REQUIRES (regardless of meta, actually) that a tank do the following:

1. Maintain hate,
2. Stay alive through proper use of abilities,
3. AND do as much damage as it is possible for a tank to do.

The concern right now (although, it's been halfway fixed in 3.1) is that PLD MT damage is lower than WAR MT or DRK MT damage.

Why in the world so many PLD tanks want to complain about combos that do damage is beyond me. It's such a ridiculous thing to complain about...

Divine Veil: Sounds nice on paper, not really all that useful tho, since it got a long cooldown and it can be tricky to hit the party with it sometimes.

The main intent of this skill, I imagine, was to give PLD something in raids to mitigate raid-wide damage. In other words, it works best when you coordinate with your healers and use it to help with hard-hitting raid boss AoE attacks that the group generally is stacked up for. If you fail to coordinate with your healers to allow proper use of the ability, that's your problem -- not a problem with the design/intent of the ability.
The CD isn't really that long, considering some of the "best" tank CDs in the game are 180 seconds, whereas Divine Veil is 150 seconds. Over the course of a 8:30 fight, that's 3 uses of Divine Veil. That's the same recast time as Vengeance (WAR skill).

[Brannigan]

The CD isn't really that long, considering some of the "best" tank CDs in the game are 180 seconds, whereas Divine Veil is 150 seconds. Over the course of a 8:30 fight, that's 3 uses of Divine Veil. That's the same recast time as Vengeance (WAR skill).

In an 8:30 fight, warrior can use vengeance at:

0:00 start of the fight
2:00
4:00
6:00
8:00

Five times.

Divine Veil could be used at

0:00
2:30
5:00
7:30

4 times.

But you shouldn't really be comparing Vengeance and Divine Veil, since one is personal mitigation and the other is raid mitigation. Vengeance lasts 15 seconds while Veil lasts a set amount of HP (usually one hit, a raid AOE). Divine Veil's cooldown is too long. The closest ability to it is Deployment Tactics, which can absorb WAY more damage and is on a shorter cooldown.

[Martin_Arcainess]

But you shouldn't really be comparing Vengeance and Divine Veil, since one is personal mitigation and the other is raid mitigation. Vengeance lasts 15 seconds while Veil lasts a set amount of HP (usually one hit, a raid AOE). Divine Veil's cooldown is too long. The closest ability to it is Deployment Tactics, which can absorb WAY more damage and is on a shorter cooldown.

Why not apply both Deployment tactics and Divine veil?

Funny thing is people was asking for a Stone Skin that would effect all party members and we got it in the form of divine veil. It's just a matter of people knowing when to use it. it even happens to Stone Skin, a few people saying it's useless because they can't find a time to use it. in that case it's the players fault not knowing how to use the skill not the skill itself.

[Ultimatecalibur]

Why not apply both Deployment tactics and Divine veil?

Funny thing is people was asking for a Stone Skin that would effect all party members and we got it in the form of divine veil. It's just a matter of people knowing when to use it. it even happens to Stone Skin, a few people saying it's useless because they can't find a time to use it. in that case it's the players fault not knowing how to use the skill not the skill itself.

Its actually stronger than an AoE stoneskin on everyone but a Warrior in Defiance as the shield is equal to 10% the Paladin's hp. With an i210 Vit Paladin this is 40% (Dragoon) to 60% (Healer) stronger than Stoneskin if they are in i210.

The biggest problem I've seen with the Divine Veil is that it scales best with Vit, but the current meta favors Str.

[Martin_Arcainess]

Its actually stronger than an AoE stoneskin on everyone but a Warrior in Defiance as the shield is equal to 10% the Paladin's hp. With an i210 Vit Paladin this is 40% (Dragoon) to 60% (Healer) stronger than Stoneskin if they are in i210.

The biggest problem I've seen with the Divine Veil is that it scales best with Vit, but the current meta favors Str.

Damn that some HP mitigation there. At the moment for Thordan I'm mostly using VIT gear as he hits like a truck even with AA.


About Royal Authority, I don't get why people saying it's boring because it has no effect. It's a awesome skill! The main point of it is to increase your DPS purely so it doesn't need a status effect added onto it. I'ts pure potency.

[FallenWings]

...About Royal Authority, I don't get why people saying it's boring because it has no effect. It's a awesome skill! The main point of it is to increase your DPS purely so it doesn't need a status effect added onto it. I'ts pure potency.

The issue with Royal Authority is that it comparatively sucks when you want to Sword Oath tank.

The Royal Authority combo is like a half baked Butcher's Block chain for PLD.

Butcher's Block for Warrior is their strongest combo chain AND their primary enmity chain, which enables them to do two things at once, DPS more and Hold Aggro.

Storm's Path is the lowest combo chain and is largely optional.

Rage of Halone is the lowest combo chain and is required if you want to hold aggro.

This disparity is made worse thanks to PLD's enmity modifiers being lower than WARs and DRKs ontop of the fact that PLDs have no equivalent in Maim/Darkside for further Enmity boosting.

I don't know how good the new Shield Swipe is for enmity so I can't comment on that properly but I'm fairly sure that 150 x3(?) every 15-Badluck does not outweigh a static +25% or 15%(+Dark Arts) to overall enmity.

In regards to PLD skills

Clemency is always going to be niche unless it can operate like Equilibrium (Instantaneous Self Heal).

Divine Veil is going to be niche until we encounter something like a Teraflare in which ALL Debuffs and Raid-wide Shields MUST be up. But then that would incur a problem in which Divine Veil becomes necessary and DRKs get left out.

Sheltron I would really like to see it block Magic damage at the very least. It would lessen the mitigation disparity with Magical Tankbusters whilst also letting DRK still be the magic specialist since 10 seconds of all magical damage > 1 instance of magical damage. If this is somehow too imbalanced, then let DRKs parry magical damage. They would further be the better magic specialist by chance. Just spitballing.

[Donjo]

Why in the world so many PLD tanks want to complain about combos that do damage is beyond me. It's such a ridiculous thing to complain about...

I don't think that's the cause of the confusion. Take a look at all of the combo enders for the Tanks.

WAR
Storm's Path: Deals Damage... and reduces enemy damage dealt.
Storm's Eye: Deals damage... and reduces enemy slashing resistance.
Butcher's Block: Deals damage... and generates a ton of Enmity.

DRK
Delirium: Deals Damage... and reduces enemy intelligence.
Souleater: Deals Damage... and provides a self heal(in Grit at least).
Power Slash: Deals Damage... and generates a ton of Enmity.

PLD
Goring Blade: Deals Damage... and provides a powerful dot.
Rage of Halone: Deals Damage... and generates a ton of Enmity.
Royal Authority: Deals Damage... and nothing else.

Royal Authority is the only Tank combo ender that does not have any kind of additional effect. To many, this feels like a missed opportunity.

[Launched]

PLD
Goring Blade: Deals Damage... and provides a powerful dot.
Rage of Halone: Deals Damage... and generates a ton of Enmity.
Royal Authority: Deals Damage... and nothing else.

Royal Authority is the only Tank combo ender that does not have any kind of additional effect. To many, this feels like a missed opportunity.

You forgot that Halone has STR Down. Maybe you'd prefer it if that was moved to Royal to give each finisher something instead?

[Donjo]

You forgot that Halone has STR Down. Maybe you'd prefer it if that was moved to Royal to give each finisher something instead?

Haha, oops. You're right there. STR Down could be good on Royal though. It'd ensure that it stays on monsters more often no matter what the Paladin is doing.

[Ralvenom]

Royal Authority: Deals Damage... and nothing else.

I still fail to see the issue. As Launched said, Halone reduces enemy str. An attack that deals damage is perfectly acceptable for ANY CLASS, regardless of whether you like or not. Considering that PLD have block*, it balances out.

*Block & Storm's Path debuff both result in reduced dmg taken, but Block is constant. No WAR worth his/her salt keeps Storm's Path up all the time.

warrior can use vengeance at [snip]
Five times.

Divine Veil could be used at [snip]
4 times.

Let's be realistic here. There's very little reason to use vengeance at the start of a pull, since you don't need the 30% dmg reduction then. (You also probably wouldn't use it near the end of encounter either.) Likewise, you wouldn't use Divine Veil at start of pull, since you don't need the raid-wide shield then. Taking that into consideration, you basically have a viable opportunity to use either ability 3 times.

But you shouldn't really be comparing Vengeance and Divine Veil

I'm comparing them based on time. I thought that was kind of obvious, based on this sentence:

That's the same recast time as Vengeance (WAR skill).