Quote Originally Posted by Exira View Post
Snip
Firstly, I never once said that War is better than Pld, nor that War (or Pld) require adjustments (I am actually arguing for the opposite). All I said was that War was more self-sufficient, had consistently higher dps, was easier to use, and is universally an asset; whereas, Pld requires good party coordination to function properly ... All of which you've basically said in your own post, so I guess you agree with me ...

Secondly, you have a few things wrong. Pld cannot answer every burst. That's flat out false, least of all when facing a Wars who can throw out Fell Cleaves roughly every 10 seconds (depending on personal Skill Speed). They can also use double Fell Cleaves every 60 seconds and triple Fell Cleaves roughly every 120 seconds. That's, potentially, 15 Fell Cleaves within their full burst period. Pld's, conversely, can rock a single Cover and DV every 120 seconds (for a duration of 12s or less, in the case of DV), and a Testudo every 150 seconds (20s duration). Even if they timed the perfectly, by some miracle, that defense can still be compromised by poor healing. Clemency can be used as a supplement, but it can only be used 3 times consecutively and takes a full 2 seconds to cast (during which time the burst may very well be over, since it is next to impossible to anticipate in advance unless you've got a stopwatch going). I'm not saying that they can't stretch that mitigation pretty far. They can, but there is no way in hell they can cover every burst that a War gets off, let alone an entire team's worth of bursts. After all, War is only ONE out of THREE potential targets who are bursting at any given time.

Another thing to consider is that every move a Pld uses is a double edged sword. Using it one way costs it's utility somewhere else. Stun locking potentially costs them the use of Cover, as they cannot follow a covered target and maintain their stuns at the same time. Their own dps (and yes, Pld's do, in fact, do at least a little dps) also takes a dive. Clemency is a 100% reduction in both CC and dps, as Pld's can't even move while using it. 100% is a pretty substantial trade off in any circumstances unless the CC timer is on reset. Testudo/DV can be used to save a target's life and cover a burst or LB, but doing that restricts it's usage during an assault, compromising their own teams kill efficiency. I could go into detail on this, but the short and simple of it is a difference between trying to help your team score a kill by giving them time to sustain their assault versus trying to help keep your team alive. There's a time and a place for both usages. Depending on the circumstances, one of those things will help win the match. The other will only delay the inevitable. Given that, to actually win a match, your team has to score kills, it's clear where the priorities should be, unless your team is already ahead in points. That fact alone is what makes Pld so dependent on good healing, because every defensive move they use to cover for a healer's shortcomings is costing their Dps team up-time. There's also a matter of efficiency, as saving the usage of any of those moves means less usages overall during the course of the match. There's only one way Pld's can actively make up that time on their own, and that's by using their stun rotation.

TL;DR: I could go on and on about this in more specific details, but in the end it really falls to party composition and coordination. The bottom line is that Pld's would be utterly crippled if they weren't able to work their stuns as fluidly as they can now; so, no. They absolutely, under no circumstances, should suffer a nerf just because healers find their stun rotation annoying. If SE ever did decide to nerf them, then they would most certainly have to buff Pld in some other area (likely dps) to compensate.