Pally Is Almost Perfect

[GeekMatt]

Clemency's fantastic as-is now, can be used in a multitude of places in practical ways that actually saves lives. Cases like VA, when boss casts Black Lung I immediately look at who's in his path because they're going to die. Also works to heal self as needed.

I used Cover in my Sephirot SM the other day when neither tank expected adds and they nearly burned down my healer. It can also be useful in A5(M1), DV, Vault, TEX and a number of other places in a way that's more scripted, but would love added range, outside of party usage, and magic Mitigation.

Sword Oath would be fantastic oGCD, but our damage should never be great. The overall tank nerf is irrelevant to us in this conversation because we don't need good DPS, we needed comparable-to-other-tanks DPS just so we remain viable in that department, not so we excel, and that DPS gap between tanks has shrunk.

TP was my only real frustration but it has been way better, no complaints yet. Veil is awesome. Tempered Will could definitely use a shorter CD, it's not powerful enough to justify its duration. If there's a reason that is can't be made shorter (fear of PLD being OP on future mechanics like in Titan) then it should be given an additional effect so that it can benefit us more regularly

[Jonnycbad]

2. Tempered Will cool down is way too long. Any time I could use it and feel badass, I can't use it the next two times. For example, to stop the knockback on last boss in Neverreap. Who cares when I can't stop the next two knockbacks! >.<

Tempered Will is extremely powerful and it's the only job that can negate a knockback for the mostpart. This allows the PLD to circumvent an otherwise lethal mechanic (Landslide comes to mind). If this could be used more frequently, it would allow more dodging of lethal mechanics. We don't want PLD to be immune to knockbacks.

3) Why is PLD the only tank that has to burn GCD to switch stances? Isn't it already bad enough that

DRK burns GCD when turning Grit on (but not off), the issue is their DPS stance can be stacked with their tank stance (but the penalty is on their MP). Sword Oath costs no resources to upkeep, unlike DRKs, but it needs to be toggled with their tank stance. So there's pros/cons to this.

4) they have to wait til 40 for their tank stance?

PLD has more damage mitigation at 30-40 than WAR and DRK do (they have a Shield etc). WAR has no real damage mitigation...Forsight is like -6% damage taken when you account for the defense boost...Defiance boosts HP but not damage mitigation. DRK has one cooldown up until 30, but has no Shield.

[Februs]

Tempered Will is extremely powerful and it's the only job that can negate a knockback for the most part. This allows the PLD to circumvent an otherwise lethal mechanic (Landslide comes to mind). If this could be used more frequently, it would allow more dodging of lethal mechanics. We don't want PLD to be immune to knockbacks.

This if flat out not true.

Firstly, If a move has an AoE cone, you should be dodging it, not negating it via a gimmick move. TW does not mitigate dmg, so eating a hit in the face that you could have dodged is plain silly (and will make your healers hate you for a long time). It can also screw with your party, because your Off Tank might not know that you activated it. If the OT sees you standing in a AoE cone, they could voke the boss from you because they think you're about to take a header off of a cliff. Any tank knows that unplanned vokes tend to cause more trouble then they avoid (in Titan Ex, for example, a voke like this could feed a Mountain Buster to your entire party), so this is not good.

Now, you might think that TW is a good "oh shit" move in case you were too sluggish to dodge, but that's not true either. Like Hallowed Ground, Tempered Will has a delayed effect. The status does not take effect until after the animation is done, so there's about a 1.5 second delay, meaning that you cannot use it as a last ditch effort to avoid getting punted. It has to be used in advance, in anticipation of the knock back, to guarantee success. If you do not have TW up by approximately 75% (depending on personal latency) of the boss's cast bar, or if TW is not up before the AoE indicators disappear, you will still get punted, regardless of what your status bar says.

Secondly (and this is the important bit), TW is not used to intentionally eat knock back mechanics. TW is used to maintain position. Any tank can tell you the importance of keeping a fixed point and not having to move. TW excels at this, that's true, but Pld's are not the only job who can do this.

Warriors can Holmgang a target for the same effect. It's on the same CD as TW (180 seconds) and it has the additional utility of making the War immune to death during it's duration. Drk's can execute a Plunge to re-position themselves instantly after a knock back and maintain optimal positioning. They don't get any additional effects from it (like removal of Heavy, or death immunity), but they do additional dmg and can use Plunge every 30 seconds. Meaning that a Drk can negate ever single knock back in a boss fight to maintain optimal positioning. Further, TW is exclusively used in knock back situations, whereas War's and Drk's can use Holmgang and Plunge in any fight they want and still gain utility out of them. By comparison, TW is WAY behind the curve.

[Mirch]

Tempered Will is OP, I always used it during Divebombs (the last one), Cauterize and Megaflare Dive, also during Titan Ex's Sumo kick attack.

[Seku]

I wish PLD was near perfect, but it's not. Probably won't be fixed until 4.0 since they seem to be doing the same thing they did to DRG in 2.x. Minor upgrades to try and make the job ok, but really is still avoided by groups looking for optimization.

[Edewen]

Im really liking the feel of paladin now. The only thing i would change would be to Clemency.

Clemency.
If casted on yourself, 200 potency heal. *to offset the instant cast buff to not be horribly OP
If casted on others, standard 1000 potency heal. *slight nerf for it being useable more often
Give a buff on royal authority or replace str down on RoH, The next clemency is 50% mp cost and is instant/off gcd.

Frankly, I want to see paladins able to set themselves apart through means of skill. Being able to offheal while tanking and offtanking would provide interesting and unique gameplay.

To offset this utility, Drk could be a kind of debuffer, change delirium to put a debuff on the boss that heals you when you hit it.

[AlexiIvaniskavich]

Burn me for thinking this, but I am not totally against flooring at 4 minutes, this is roughly half of most fights they seem to be kicking out, plus there are enough mechanics/jumps that seem to force natural down time. YES I get that there is a tank that doesn’t have to worry about this issue at all, and the other tank has more …. Edgy things to do when TP floored, but meh. I would honestly like to see it stretched maybe a bit further, but I personally like some flaws to be present. (and now like several others, spamming Clemency as TP management is not the answer)

Cover was completely ignored.

Tempered Will was completely ignored. The main problem with these two being that Pld is the ONLY tank job that has moves that they don't, and often can't, use. That's just plain stupid.

Am I the only one who used “Tempered Will” during ThorEx out of spite?????? Every time I run my PLD out, I seem to press this skill with more venom and spewing disgust than any other skill in the game. Including the fishing ones…

I’d love to see Cover’s range improved, or to add magic damage (not both – cuz imperfections are fun). Course, when I heal, I get covered all the time, and yelled at by melee DD’s because I am standing in their way.

*****
I am going to jump on the bandwagon of keeping SwO on gcd and making ShO off gcd. This puts it as the opposite as DRK(balance). From here, I am not sure what more changes I think PLD needs without knowing SE’s plans for 4.0 and <potential> new skills. *******blinders should be put on here********

When comparing only the dps combos of PLD to DRK, the potency for PLD is higher by 140 (assuming 2 SE combos and 1 DE combo). Believe it or not, it’s a bigger difference in favor of PLD over WAR on this. (end blinders) Of course, we all know it’s the other buttons that DRK/WAR get to mash that do damage where PLD gets left high and dry, just under a 1500 potency difference in favor of DRK (making the total potency difference 1300 ish). This potency split is, frankly, to great a chasm to cross without a complete re-work of the class. I think it would be a little broken if the entire RA combo was juiced to a total of 1k potency AND the Goring combo was bumped by 600. There isn’t really an adjustment that could be made to SwO (beyond getting silly – and looking only at PLD dps ) that could bridge this gap either.

Now if SE decides to add new skills that are damage based for PLD in 4.0, major overhaul to today’s skills or stances c/would make the class ridiculously OP. Go ahead and hold your breath for that one though…..

I would still love to see SE push the class to a more “utility” tank. PLD already has the foundation, it just needs a little bit more, and there is one button I have in mind that could do it. My friend, Tempered Will. Change its name, and add 1 thing: “Increase target’s damage taken by x% for 10s”
Keep it on it’s silly 3 minute cooldown and give the party, I dunno, 15% bonus attack? (somebody maths for me, I’m all out on a Monday)

The class has the makings of being the humble servant of shield, it takes damage for others, it can heal others (now new and improved), give it the ability to INSPIRE others on the battle field. (This completes my childhood vision of what a Paladin is).

[Februs]

Burn me for thinking this, but I am not totally against flooring at 4 minutes ... I would honestly like to see it stretched maybe a bit further, but I personally like some flaws to be present.

I'm striking the match ... Just kidding.

I am going to have to disagree with you, though (first time for everything, right?). Like you, I am totally okay with running out of Tp in 4 minutes. That's not the problem. The problem is that I have no way to manage my Tp. I don't want a perfect job. I want a functional one that requires thought, planning, and execution. In short, I want a little more depth out of my Pld.

The way things are now, when I run out of TP I'm forced to just sit there and go, "Welp ... Guess I'll just wait for the next TB to pretend to be useful." That's not good. Now, consider a slight hypothetical change in which Riot Blade provides Tp instead of Mp while in SwO. In this situation, instead of just accepting the fact that I ran dry and am helpless, I have a judgement call to make. Do I sacrifice defense in favour of Dps and Tp regeneration? Or do I turtle up and patiently wait it out? It's a choice. Making the correct decision requires forethought and knowledge of the boss mechanics. If I'm expecting a TB, for example, then it's best to wait. If I'm expecting adds to Tank, then it's best to wait. If not ... then maybe it's time to gamble. This is just one possible change they could have made that would have added some depth to the job, as well as justify any future increases to Skill Speed that Pld might see with upcoming gear/expansions.

Am I the only one who used “Tempered Will” during ThorEx out of spite?????? Every time I run my PLD out, I seem to press this skill with more venom and spewing disgust than any other skill in the game. Including the fishing ones…

No, my friend. Like you, I use TW whenever I can. I even sometimes use it when I know that I don't have to and it has absolutely no use whatsoever, just because it's a button to press (#TankConfessions).

As for Sword Oath, my wishes for that Oath are not in how much dmg potential it possibly has. I'm more interested in how much uniqueness of play a Pld can get out of it, and how much it could do for the Pld's identity.

As it is, additional auto attack dmg is, quite frankly, uninspired (sorry, SE, but I call it like I see it). They clearly wanted to do something with the speed of the Pld's weapons, but didn't really know how to do anything meaningful with it. Auto attack dmg increase is fine, I guess, but a flat potency increase is silly and shows a tremendous lack of foresight. Not only does it not play off of any of Pld's current moves, it also leaves no room for working with future additions to the job. At one point, it did provide some measure of hope in that different styled swords could see increased returns from SwO, but they never really went anywhere with that either. In fact, they've been drifting away from this idea, because all of the swords in the game are slowly becoming uniform and homogenized. The same could almost be said for Pld's Oaths.

War's see different move paths open up to them depending on what stance they are in. Drk's see both different move sets and different attack effects, depending on what stance they're in (Darkside isn't a "stance" ... blah blah blah). Pld plays exactly the same regardless of what Oath they are in. Nothing changes, other than they don't suffer a dmg reduction. That is a very uninspired job design.

If SE wanted to actually do something meaningful to the Pld job, then they would divide the Oaths by the way that they were actually defined. Shield Oath would be all about the shield. Sword Oath would be all about the sword. This means that the Oath that is in greater need of a fix is actually Shield Oath, because we only have two shield abilities in our entire kit (shield swipe and shield bash), and neither of them are on a combo. That should never have happened. Shield Oath should have shield related mechanics, and Sword Oath should be about sword related mechanics. That way, when players are learning Pld, they can spend their time playing GLD learning their offensive kit and their time playing Pld learning their defensive kit. If they wanted to keep Pld dps lower (for some unknown and arbitrary reason), then they still could. They'd just have to adjust the Oaths as necessary (say, focusing on skill speed instead of potency).

[eagledorf]

PLD and DRK are both far from almost perfect. Let's look at what's still weak about each job and think about if it's a problem or not.

PLD:

1. Runs out of TP the fastest of the tanks
2. Weakest debuff with the highest cost to apply
3. Lacking in magical buffs
4. Low DPS, no burst
5. Support spells still cancel
6. No AoE on GCD

DRK:

1. Lacking in reliable physical buffs
2. DPS, self-healing, support all dependent on taking damage frequently
3. Highest penalty for hate generation

For PLD:

1. Extremely problematic because Paladins require TP for all their damage-dealing skills and ranged hate-generating skill; PLD is also the only tank that requires TP to stun.
2. PLD is the only tank that can't debuff both damage types and Halone is the most expensive of the debuff skills to keep up.
3. Mainly problematic when compared to WAR, would be less so if Stoneskin couldn't cancel and no. 2 was fixed IMO.
4. Extremely problematic despite the tank DPS nerf. Low burst also means low burst hate and even lower DPS in actual content.
5. This is mostly problematic because of numbers 2-4, otherwise it's fine if they're basically OT only skills.
6. This is problematic because on a trash pull a PLD stops contributing anything after Blind resist sets in (~10s). There should be an AoE skill that can be spammed, but too expensive to be sustained like a DRK can sustain Unleash so PLD have to still mix in Flashes or heals.

DRK:

1. This is mainly problematic compared to WAR. SE has kept magic damage a fair part of raid content so it's not a disadvantage compared to PLD.
2. This is problematic because DRK will either perform poorly as OT or be overpowered as MT for as long as this remains the case. I also think it's not a logical design for a tank, but that's a matter of opinion.
3. This is problematic mainly in comparison to WAR.

Other comments:

1. I personally think Divine Veil should also proc on "absorb" heals as well as spells. Right now the fairy can proc Divine Veil, but Synastry cannot and this would fix this problem. As a bonus, casting Clemency on a third party would also proc it with this change.

2. Dark Dance and Bulwark are way under-powered compared to Raw Intuition. They're not only unreliable, they also have a weaker average efficacy.

[Synestra]

2. Dark Dance and Bulwark are way under-powered compared to Raw Intuition. They're not only unreliable, they also have a weaker average efficacy.

Also could anyone explain why Bulwark has 180s recast while being 60% chance while DD is same 60% with way shorther recast? is it because block is potentially stronger than parry? Also Bulwark is pretty damn weaksauce and unreliable for bosses, atm it feels more like filler CD for singletarget fights.