Thread: PLD 4.0

Originally Posted by Giantbane

They should make parry boost block slightly, simply to make up for the fact that they roll against each other. But they'd also need to make parry a more universally desirable stat.

Skill Speed and Spell Speed exist because they wanted an identical stat for mages and melee (while punishing cross-classed stuff as the "wrong" domain). Unfortunately, the two hybrid classes that use both got shafted as a result.

Anyway, parry is pretty much universally garbage because it can't be relied on to actually mitigate anything unless you burn Keen Flurry or Raw Intuition (converting parry into a weaker version of block strength with Bulwark). The only way they could make parry more desirable to stack as a tank is to eat into the value of certain CDs like Awareness or Foresight, by directly altering how incoming damage is handled based on how much parry you have (lowering crit rate per +X000 parry or reducing physical damage per +X000 parry, for example).

Other things: I'm not going to front here, I haven't been able to reproduce the DPS disparity people see with DRK/PLD in MT slot, so I can't really say with certainty DRK is way better, or PLD is way worse; I get about the same results with both, with a slight favoring on DRK on trash pulls from DA-AD/Unleash. The reason I bring this up is because somebody mentioned that RA needs a buff in ShO because DRK's Grit DPS is slightly higher, but RA really, really doesn't need any buffs.
Its closest competitor is DASE, which generates no additional enmity and requires an augmenting skill to reach full potential; RA is a consistent 690 potency combo and has a hidden +100 potency because of Savage Blade (+400 with ShO). It's the most consistent tank DPS rotation, and generates bonus enmity to boot, so giving RA any sort of added effect would be stupidly strong in favor of PLD. If you're losing threat faster than 1% per second to your DPS with RA combo in SwO, your DPS are doing way more than you are and you should cushion yourself with ShO instead. They don't need the help anyway, apparently.

edit: Fixed some numbers I should have gotten right in the first place, and changed some wording to make my post clearer.

Originally Posted by fm_fenrir

[RA's] closest competitor is DA-SE, which generates no additional enmity and requires an augmenting skill to reach full potential; RA is a consistent [340] potency and has a hidden +100 potency without ShO (it's +400 with ShO) because of Savage Blade. It's the most consistent tank DPS rotation, and generates bonus enmity to boot, so giving RA any sort of added effect would be stupidly strong in favor of PLD. If you're losing threat faster than 1% per second to your DPS with RA combo in SwO, your DPS are doing way more than you are and you should cushion yourself with ShO instead. They don't need the help anyway, apparently.

Wait, what? It doesn't have any hidden potency bonus. It's simply doing 20% less damage in ShO, same as the Savage Blade before it, the Fast Blade before that, your oGCDs, and you AAs. The only "hidden potency" within a given combo is if you don't know, with a 1.8-2.6s blade, exactly how many times in 3 GCDs your AAs will strike, contributing anywhere from 100 to 200 bonus potency via Sword Oath (since we use mostly 2.1-2.2s blades, generally 150).

The only bonus enmity a Royal Authority combo produces is the 400 from Savage Blade. Compare that with the 1900 bonus enmity from Power Slash combo. You could spam it infinitely, and a DRK using PS combo every 4th combo would overtake you. (Note also, self-healing produces enmity, just like any other heal. Yay SE.) And since you're technically going to be spending every third combo on GB anyways, they could overtake you with a PS every sixth.



As for the DPS difference: Put on Grit / Shield Oath and go dps a dummy. You will most likely find the DRK doing a bit more. This gap increases once Blood Price is mixed in, especially if the DRK is free to use it on DA-SE (AoE and DA-DD are unnecessary) and stance-dancing becomes possible. PLDs gain 10 potency per second if Shield Swipe is ready every time its CD refreshes. DRKs can refresh their ability, striking for the same damage, albeit with a lower proc chance, and have an additional 200-potency counter per 45s. These two abilities alone, Low Blow and Reprisal, more than make up for Shield Swipe typically, and the added DA-SEs just make it better.

Also, isn't it usually a bad sign when a class is basically limited to the options of (1) using its non-enmity finisher in dps stance or using its (2) using its non-enmity finisher in tank stance? What ever happened to the viability of using the enmity combo, in either stance?

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Wait, what? It doesn't have any hidden potency bonus. It's simply doing 20% less damage in ShO, same as the Savage Blade before it

I was only talking about Savage's enmity bonus, which I specifically mentioned in my post. Comparing DASE raw (for convenience, mostly), it's 800 (150+250+400) potency to RA's 690 (150+200+340) (+100 for Savage bonus, effectively "790" potency). RA doesn't require any resource management (other than TP), so it, naturally, doesn't come with any other neat effects. Also, I am not really sure what planet I wrote that original potency number on, because I've made this argument before and used the right numbers, so... orz
Anyway, the added potency from Savage's enmity bonus is enough to keep your threat lead alive against DPS, but not necessarily other tanks; I don't think it's fair to compare DRK/PLD on a threat basis because PLD's MT threat is sufficient for handling DPS, but it's easily the weakest at keeping the other two tanks at bay in direct tank stance on tank stance pissing matches. I guess that's an indication that PLD's threat needs some attention, but I'm not sure what you'd do other than bumping the ShO multiplier to compensate.

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Put on Grit / Shield Oath and go dps a dummy. You will most likely find the DRK doing a bit more. This only becomes more the case when Blood Price is mixed in, AoE is unnecessary, DA-DD is unnecessary, and stance-dancing becomes possible, whereas stance-dancing is much more dps-costly for PLDs. PLDs gain 10 potency per second if Shield Swipe is ready every time its CD refreshes. The DRK typically gains quite a bit more in the long run, covering the Shield Swipe difference off Low Blow and Reprisal alone.

I haven't really taken stance dropping into account, because I don't run content with competent enough healers to drop tank stance outside boss pulls. I'd feel very, very sorry for the healer who had to try to heal me through a big trash pull because I wanted to squeeze out another 50 dps from dropping Grit.

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Also, isn't it usually a bad sign when a class is basically limited to the options of (1) using its non-enmity finisher in dps stance or using its (2) using its non-enmity finisher in tank stance. What ever happened to the viability of using the enmity combo, in either stance?

PLD only had that option for 2.55, and it was rough for WARs who wanted to MT. OT slot needs a high potency non enmity rotation to avoid the old "FOF ROH ROH ROH ROH we;lp RIP real MT, I'm the tank now" situation.

Originally Posted by fm_fenrir

I was only talking about Savage's enmity bonus, which I specifically mentioned in my post.

Sorry, I got confused given that it's a 400-potency bonus (due to adding 2x enmity, or applying a 3x multiplier, to a 200-potency attack). I had no idea where you were getting +100 potency from.

Originally Posted by fm_fenrir

Anyway, the added potency from Savage's enmity bonus is enough to keep your threat lead alive against DPS, but not necessarily other tanks; I don't think it's fair to compare DRK/PLD on a threat basis because PLD's MT threat is sufficient for handling DPS, but it's easily the weakest at keeping the other two tanks at bay in direct tank stance on tank stance pissing matches. I guess that's an indication that PLD's threat needs some attention, but I'm not sure what you'd do other than bumping the ShO multiplier to compensate.

It is entirely fair, and the comparison should have been made more closely. A PLD will be doing 1090 potency + ~150 SwO + ~250 AA potency per RA, or about 1490 total. A Warrior in Defiance using no enmity-modified abilities would still be averaging 1760 enmity per combo. With Fight or Flight, we'd be doing 1937, but with Unchained they'd be doing 2350. With Berserk also: 3520. We're not about to overtake anyone. And even if we were, that might be a reason to reduce Savage Blade's enmity mod, sure, but not PLD's average or burst enmity output.

Increasing ShO's enmity modifier would be a good start, at least. Defiance and Grit have a 2.3x enmity bonus. Shield Oath remains at 2.0. Power Slash/Butchers Block and Spinning Slash/Skull Sunder have 5.5x and 3.5x enmity modifiers respectively. Rage of Halone and Savage Blade are only 5.0x and 3.0x.

Originally Posted by fm_fenrir

PLD only had that option for 2.55, and it was rough for WARs who wanted to MT. OT slot needs a high potency non enmity rotation to avoid the old "FOF ROH ROH ROH ROH we;lp RIP real MT, I'm the tank now" situation.

That doesn't mean PLDs enmity combos should just stop being viable now. I'm not asking to spam it. I'm asking for RoH in Sword Oath to do at least do enough to be worth doing, rather than my only other ideal option being to switch to Shield Oath and just keep RAing (now for 272 ePotency, still stronger than SwO RoH). The 11-14% extra dps from SwO AAs can't even seem to make up for that as a longterm option, at least in the eyes of most PLDs I play with. At current, there are few moves anyone would so hate to use. DRK's enmity combo provides no mana, but is within 10 potency of their highest regular combo. It IS WAR's highest potency combo. Why then does it need to be 80 potency off for PLD, let alone have a lesser enmity modifier? That's all I meant by this.

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

DRK's enmity combo provides no mana, but is within 10 potency of their highest regular combo. It IS WAR's highest potency combo. Why then does it need to be 80 potency off for PLD, let alone have a lesser enmity modifier? That's all I meant by this.

But my original statement was that RA is not only the least involved DPS combo (since it doesn't require any special actions to do), but it also has enmity built in via Savage Blade. That makes it difficult to add anything to without grossly favoring PLD, because they'd have Halone and the Buff RA variant to draw from.

What do you give RA that isn't absurdly strong, considering you can do it every three GCDs with no penalty? As PLD's highest potency combo, it will always be the go-to combo unless you direly need threat generation from ROH, so whatever added effect RA got would always be in play.