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

[Kaizer]

Wild stupid head canon conspiracy crap text incoming...

So initially WAR was not a good job and not looked favorably upon. It was the job that was depicted as the WoL in the cutscenes for 2.0 (and I think even before). Then boom, buffs came in and now its super good.

In 2.0 everyone was loldrgfloorbbq and it wasn't look favorably upon. Then it HW it was depicted in the cutscenes and a major focal point. Now boom, awesome dps.

Paladin is next... tinfoil hat off...

[Februs]

Wild stupid head canon conspiracy crap text incoming...Paladin is next... tinfoil hat off...

Dragoon wasn't really broken. If the player was good and used their rotation correctly you could roll extremely high Dps even before 3.0. Proof in the pudding is that none of Drg's abilities were actually buffed or nerfed with 3.0. They only added the new mechanic of Blood of the Dragon (which essentially turns Drg's into monsters). People only looked unfavorably at Drg's because of the persisting notion of them dying frequently which carried over from FFXI. Sometimes the "lol Drg" is justified, because their jump animation tends to get them caught in AoE's when everyone else can move (hence why their jump animation time has been adjusted twice, that I can remember). Otherwise though, the job was fine and nothing was "fixed." It was only hyped in HW advertisements to get people more into it.

War had serious problems that made them nearly unplayable in the First Coil. A lot of those problems are similar to what Pld is facing now, especially Tp consumption (which was also a War issue and subsequently saw every combo finisher they have reduced in Tp cost in 2.1), but War still had it worse back then. Their Cd's were awful and made then unsuited for Tank Busters. Their Hp regen was heavily nerfed compared to now, and they ran dry on Tp all the time. The only thing they exceeded at was Threat generation.

By comparison, Pld is a tiny bit better off. They're not strictly unplayable in end game. They're just ridiculously unbalanced and substantially harder to play than War's and Drk's. The rest of the team has to cover the slack, and that's not cool. There's also the added community stigma of them being wimpy compared to Drks and Wars (dmg wise), so less and less people want to play as them.

Right now, its definitely a safe bet to say that Pld is by far the job in FFXIV that requires the most attention and fixes from SE. I just hope that it doesn't take a full expansion (Drg) or a mass abandonment (War) to see it happen.

[Brannigan]

Dragoon wasn't really broken
-

They could hang on DPS for the most part, but frequently turning bosses really screwed them before their positionals got changed to not break combos upon failure. The bigger issue with them was magic defense in Final Coil. For the first few weeks depending on your drops they'd get smashed by unavoidable magic damage like megaflare much harder than the other jobs. Not much changed from 2.55->3.0 for dragoon because it all got fixed back in 2.4. Actually, Dragoon got a ton of tiny adjustments over the life of 2.0 - jump animation and cooldown used to be much, much longer.

[Februs]

2.55->3.0 for dragoon because it all got fixed back in 2.4. Actually, Dragoon got a ton of tiny adjustments over the life of 2.0 - jump animation and cooldown used to be much, much longer.

I remember, but I still wouldn't say that Dragoons were by any means broken before the adjustments.

Positional requirements are still in place for maximum combo potency, not much really changed for Drg's who were already maximizing their Dps. The only immediate benefit Drg's universally saw from that was the ability to re-apply Heavy Lance without having to re-position in the event a Flank hit was impossible. Quite frankly, if you learned how to use Drg before the change, it just felt like a Quality of Life adjustment that lowered the skill bar for new or lazy players. Seasoned Drg's were happy with it, obviously, but they still positioned to maximize Dps, so it wasn't huge or anything.

The magic defense adjustment was definitely a good thing though. Even back before Final Coil, the Magic dmg from Turns like T9 was a nightmare for Drg's, so it was a very welcomed change... That being said, I still wouldn't say that it was a make or break issue for Drg's. Healers certainly hated having to take extra special care of them, but their abysmal Magic def didn't make them unplayable. I don't think anyone was booting Drg's out of Raids because of their Defense.

You're right though. By the time 3.0 rolled around there wasn't really anything left to change. Jump animations still get debated a little (since Drg's can still eat the paste if they're not careful with their jumps), but I don't think anyone's dropping the job over it.