Why does Clemency get interrupted? And why does Sword/Shield Oath reset combo?

[Sunako]

But paladin can use all defensive abilities inside sword oath(except tank stance ofc). Warrior need defiance for inner beast + equilibrium heal. DRK soul eater not heal anything without grit.

[Ultimatecalibur]

I mean, really, SE? You give us a wonderful spell (well...as wonderful as it could be, anyway) but then limit its use by letting it be interrupted. And the 3 second cast time? You'd think for over two thousand MP, it would cast faster than that, or at least not get interrupted...

Clemency is interruptable because it is a spell and that is not the real problem. It actually takes a fair bit of damage to interrupt a Paladin's spells, but the current "Str over Vit + fight in DpS stance" meta makes it far easier for monsters to interrupt casts. It takes more than 1.5 times the damage to interrupt a Vit paladin in Shield Oath than it does to interrupt a Str tank in Sword Oath if they are the same ilevel.

4000 damage taken within 3 seconds is more common than 6500 taken within 3 seconds.

And I never understood why Sword/Shield Oath resets combo progression. I feel as though that would help boost PLD's overall DPS/raid performance in end-game, if we were able to switch between stances. Perhaps not so freely.

Because in phase non-swap stance dancing was never intended to be a part of the tank skill suite. Tanks are intended to be in tank stance while tanking and in dps stance while not tanking.

Pretty much every fight where a tank needs to change stances to help with a dps check has a 3 or more second phase transition where combos would drop of anyways so changing stance is free.

The ease of Defiance/Deliverance stance swapping is the irregularity not the intended norm.

[Twilite]

Uhm.. That last line. The ease isn't broken.. And it doesn't seem strategically smart to swap mid combo.

[Shurrikhan]

The ease of Defiance/Deliverance stance swapping is the irregularity not the intended norm.

Given that we have PLD at one end (2 GCDs, highest mana cost), Warrior at the other (no GCD loss, possible health loss and slower eHP increase), and DRK exactly in the middle of that 'ease of swapping' spectrum (1 GCD loss, moderate mana cost)... it seems kind of hard to say definitively that this was never intended...

It also seems hard for them to have actually completely neglected a simple consideration like "If the next 2 GCDs' worth of damage are less than 20% of the total undiminished damage of the swap window, it is better to swap than stay." That's just common sense. I can see that they may have intentionally made that compromise a gameplay component for PLD, but for them to have never considered that their scalar and its offset might eventually intersect (at 4-5 GCDs depending on prior combo position and oGCDs ready) seems unlikely.

And I never understood why Sword/Shield Oath resets combo progression. I feel as though that would help boost PLD's overall DPS/raid performance in end-game, if we were able to switch between stances. Perhaps not so freely.

For example:
(1) Switching to Shield Oath would reset combos, but switching to Sword Oath would not.

Just an idea. It'd be nice to (2) tack on Goring Blade without the damage reduction by Shield Oath, without having to do the entire combo for it in Sword Oath.

That said, this much is (1) DRK (drops combo on applying Grit, not upon dropping Grit) and (2) just dropping Shield Oath early, finishing combo, and then putting up Sword Oath (before having lost a second opportunity to buff your AA). For a GB, that just saved you 100 to 108 potency. If you you could swap into Sword Oath without losing combo, then you could slap on another 50 or 100 during that GB GCD's AA(s).

[Galactimus]

While it's not a perfect solution you don't always have to switch to Sword Oath to increase your DPS.

You can simply remove Shield Oath, which doesn't use up your GCD, does not break your current combo, and removes the 20% damage penalty that Shield Oath was giving you. Being in this Oathless state is great for when you need to push that extra bit of damage without forcing yourself into another clunky oath.

Short term its a huge dps gain. Let's you finish your next couple combos with an extra 20% damage without losing your combo or a GCD.

Long-term it's a dps loss. Not being in Sword Oath for an extended period of time will eventually negate the bonus damage you did while Oathless. However this allows you to activate an Oath at a much better time (ie. when it won't break your combo, during phase transitions, etc.)

[Ragology]

Oaths break combos because they're flagged as spells right? Maybe they should change it into an ability like how Defiance is?
I think they should make it so that changing oaths delivers an AOE attack during its animation, that way the cooldown isn't wasted. Make it scale with health available or health lost, depending on which oath you're switching into.

[Judge_Xero]

Lol you can't block while casting.

Oh ok. I remember it used to be a thing because, both BLM/WHM could use a high block rate shield with a single handed wand specifically for that purpose. That may have been back in 1.0 though.

[PogueX]

Clemency is pretty much just a gimped heal, why use it for an emergency when it takes 3 seconds cast? Why use it before taking a big AOE when healers can do it better? Why use it for anything? Honestly it would of been better if they made it like WOW's Paladin...an instant cast. If their is one ability they need to fix next patch it's clemency hands down, maybe i'll go back to playing PLD when they fix a lot of their problems

[AlexiIvaniskavich]

For reference, what I was told (and tested to seemingly be the case) is that casts are interrupted in FFXIV when you take a single hit of damage that's equal to or greater than 25% of your health. At least, I believe it's 25%, it might be a lower number, maybe 10 or 15. I'm 90% sure at least that the -size- of an individual single hit determines whether or not you get interrupted.

I would be interested in what that percentage exactly is. SOMEBODY PLEASE MATHS.

Also note that I work under the guise that the use of clemency is more on a scripted basis, rather than the OH SH** moments. I am not taking those moments into consideration.

My favorite use for clemency is during the cast bar of tank busters, so this is where I will do my research. Honestly, on mob pulls, I am a tank, not a healer. I hold agro and use defensive cooldowns, my healer’s primary job is to make sure I stay upright.

Potential issues I see:
(using A1S) Mitigated HCP (Sentinel + Rampart) does roughly 7k-9k ish damage – sorry been a while been running A1S as Drk lately - at 21k health (full vit build) 25% is 5,250. I concede that it may be plausible to mitigate that buster to be below the 25% to allow for a non-interrupted Clemency, The question becomes, why use clemency here at all?

It is my healer’s fault if I am not topped off before a tank buster on a scripted fight. If I am still sitting around 15-16k health, why would I bother casting clemency on myself when I should be poking the boss with my sword? My healer certainly won’t be in panic mode with me at that kind of health.

On a STR build, where I am starting at 16k health, during HCP my health bar looks like this:
16k > 8k > (clemency goes off) 12k. Net loss is about 4k health, which is what I have been averaging on DRK (little less but meh potato, potatoe)

Of course, none of considers harder hitting tank busters, or damage output lost etc, etc, but at this point I have done more math today than I care to. If someone can pick up where I left off with my figures that are slightly better than blatant generalizations, please do!

[Callidus]

Defiance and Deliverance has no associated cost. Grit has base cost scaled to MP like Mage spells. Shield-Sword Oath's have a cost of ~60 mp I think.

I'm a little embarrassed to admit I don't know exactly what Oaths cost, but they're in the neighborhood of ~1k MP at 60 if I recall correctly. I *think* it's about 1,200, but I don't recall for certain.