Thread: PLD 4.0

Originally Posted by Mardel

1. Swapping oaths (for us and drk)
Why does it take a gcd? Why does it cost MP? Warrior loses nothing from defiance >>> deliverance. Ninja nothing from wasp >> viper. Healers nothing from nothing >> cleric stance. However, PLD/DRK lose mp? To switch in/out of dps? It wouldn't even be a balancing issue it would simply make the job less clunky and more mp efficient.

If you had a Warrior sitting topped off at 24k in Defiance, the Deliverance button could basically say "6k hp" as its cost. For the swap to be free, the Warrior must be beneath 75% HP, because anything over that is instantly wasted. Similarly, if a Warrior swaps to Deliverance before HoTs are placed on him, he's just lost 20% periodic healing. If he swaps back before finishing his combo, he's lost 25% damage on it. Swapping to Defiance won't save a Warrior from a killing blow; it merely increases the health pool that can be topped off to thus survive the hit. It's much more delayed in that sense than Shield Oath or Grit. None of that is "free" outside of a purely DPS-oriented viewpoint, which is very unlikely to be what SE has built it for. Its largest apparent benefit is just that it feels a lot less clunky.

I'm all for changes, especially a reduction to Grit's cost or even the removal of the seemingly unnecessary Oath costs, or a revamp of Oath swaps entirely, but please don't just point at something at call it "free" when it's not, especially without specifying the weights by which you give that assessment.

Originally Posted by Mardel

2. Clemency interruption and scaling on spell speed...
Why is this even an issue? This is our only good heal, why can it be interrupted? Is it because SE doesn't know how to code a spell that cannot be interrupted? IF that's an issue have us build stacks in oaths that can let us instantly use clemency.

I would imagine it's because they wanted it to be A) primarily supportive, not a MT self-heal, and B) require proper CD timing if used as a MT self-heal. I'd be fine with seeing some sort of Art of War-esque stacking system, but would honestly rather see the spell itself internally improved, preferably by buffing only its usability, not its actual use rate or reducing its time spent (allowing more attacks to be made between with the same frequency of healing).

Originally Posted by Mardel

3. TP issues
Modify some skills to help us recover tp, maybe spirits within, since royal authority helps us recover mp already. (Then boost the amount of mp RA gives us)

This can just as easily come from a reduction of TP costs on our abilities themselves. Given that simpler alternative, I'd have to ask what you have in mind when wanting to place it on a particular ability. I'm not saying one method would be better than the other, but if two perform equally, I'd usually take the simpler. If more complicated, it should be because that suits itself to more things further down the line.

Additionally, any changes to Riot Blade's MP restore would have to be made relative to Clemency, Flash, and arguably Stoneskin. At present it takes almost 40 seconds, with two Riot Blades included, to restore the mana for a Clemency. That does seem a bit high to me. But, consider if Clemency did not break combos or was regularly used as an instant cast. Would a restore rate of 40 seconds, and a soft-cap of however long it takes to make Clemency instant, be considered expensive for a 1200 potency attack-power heal (1800 total when used on others)? We have an MP bar of two and a half Clemency casts, just barely allowing 4 per minute, as much as 3 in 20 seconds, if we start topped off and end bottomed out. That's a lot of healing, honestly.

Originally Posted by Mardel

4. Threat
RA needs to give a massive threat boost. Butchers is technically "strongest warrior combo hit" and gives them enmity bonus. This should apply to RA.

We already have an enmity combo. In our case it's uniquely paired with our debuff, which deals shit damage, although not as shit as WAR's Storm's Path (though that effectively does twice as much). It just needs to be buffed so we can use more (Sword Oath) RAs.

Originally Posted by Mardel

5. Tempered will
Make it do something else in addition to it's current ability.

The best suggestions I've seen for this are Surecast, Slow-proof, and reducing the cooldown to 2 minutes since it doesn't come with a short death-immunity, unlike the equal-CD Holmgang.

Originally Posted by Mardel

6. Shelltron
I've sat and thought... but no it's just bad. Make it a mini rampart but slightly better. 45 seconds CD, 10% flat damage reduction.

Why? I can mitigate up to 30% from what's important. Why would I trade that for a 10% mini CD, let alone at a 50% longer cooldown?

Originally Posted by Mardel

8. AoE
Make flash perform differently depending on the oath your in. So you can have it do AoE damage w/ high threat in sword oath but in shield oath it just blinds? Something along those lines... or perhaps the reverse.

Again, why?