The Problem with Paladin

[Reaujien]

Wtf is threat? Personally, I try to hold hate/enmity.

*crickets* Um... okay

On a serious note, I don't know if you've attempted Ifrit or something similar on PLD (One long, drawn out fight where youre MP pool actually has a chance to get exhausted) but as I mentioned, I did not think this was an issue until I had a fight my MP actually got exhausted.

I haven't tried Ifrit on PLD yet, but on "something similar" yes I do believe I have. As for GLA, I've had my MP get exhausted before - easy enough to have a THM come by and SP > SR on me just before stops dashing around so as to get hit with a high damaging breath attack to provide the most MP back during SR's duration. So far, for both, running out of MP on either PLD or GLA have been very situation - both of which can be corrected (or made worse) by altering strategies.

I do understand the whole using a BRD thing, but there are a few issues with that - the first being that a PLD now requires a BRD, and needs them to keep Ballad on them.

How is this different than having it be required that GLA have Featherfoot and/or Sanguine Rite just to keep his/her MP up? The only difference I see in that is by not having those abilities you have to rely more on another party member to provide the support for you.

Hmm, good thing "long, drawn out fights" require party members to help win. *Solution found.*

In some situations this may mean either ignoring the rest of the party or giving everyone Ballad, or the BRD needing to run around to get everyone songs. It's not horrible but its a bit clunky.

BRDs don't need to ignore anyone in the party, especially with regards to putting up songs. Just like a THM can find the right moment to put up SR on the GLA in an Ifrit fight, so too can a BRD find the right opportunity to put up a 3 min (or is it more than 3min?) song on one party member (or a select group of party members), and then go back and put up a song for the 'other' party member(s). And, if "need[ing] to run around to get everyone songs" (which, you know, is what BRDs do) is clunky, then I guess fighting Ifrit is just as clunky because it requires you to, you know, run around and avoid ground mechanics.

I hate to bring up FFXI, particularly as I don't want too many of it's concepts adopted here, but for PLD there, MP was less of an issue for a few reasons:

2 Jobs could refresh, PLD also had auto-refresh and some gear that gave it available.
Block rate didn't suck horribly, so you would actually sometimes block a decent ammount of Damage.
It's much easier when you have an 18 man group to get a BRD or a RDM or both with your PLD

I actually like it when ppl bring up FFXI. Most seem to think that there's not "Final Fantasy" in FFXIV, and that it's awakens the anti-christ for mentioning a previous installment of a FF game when, you know, talking about a current/new FF game (because FF games never have anything similar/familiar in them... never). Anyway, I digressed...

You're absolutely right about having multiple ways PLDs could replenish MP in XI (pre-abbyssea, or h/e it's spelled. I say that because I stopped during WotG). But, even with having all that MP available to use you still could hold a lot of threat by relying on other members of your party for threat: THF, or anyone that /THF. That alone I would argue could give PLDs in XI the majority of their threat; however, it just all depended on the pt setup and situation.

Just to bring more than one game for comparison, I also played DCUO for a bit, where tanks had a few options as well:
Multiple power refreshing jobs - there are as many healing classes as there are refreshers and tanks.
Everyone has an inherent power regeneration that while relatively minimal, is noticeable enough.

Yeah... Hmmm, games like DCUO, WoW, Rift, etc., where every class had their own way to be self-sufficient, I find really hard to try and compare to FF games only because historically FF games have centered around strategic, tactical battles that involved micro-managing party members to perform key roles in order to win the battle. And I'm not suggesting that the battles in those games didn't involve any sort of strategy, it's just they were completely different (again, imo) then the strategies used to win fights in, say, FFIV and FFT, etc. Anyone, the thick of it is, every MMO will have their own class-structure to it, and to say stuff like, "I played this one game, and so this other game should have it simply by virtue of the other game having it" is purely subjective.


All in all bro, FFXIV allows you to play GLA or PLD whenever you want, and it sounds like you already have your mind set on GLA. Whatever you do, hope you have fun doing it because after all it's a video game, and we all choose to play it based on what it offers us. XD

[Andrien]

Higher block rate is not going to solve the problem. PLD role is none other than to keep enmity, survive heavy damage, and their main source of survival and keeping enmity is in their MP and abilities. If GLA can do better in managing MP, and controlling enmity then it is not balanced.

[Phobos]

Higher block rate is not going to solve the problem. PLD role is none other than to keep enmity, survive heavy damage, and their main source of survival and keeping enmity is in their MP and abilities. If GLA can do better in managing MP, and controlling enmity then it is not balanced.

I agree with this, and if this were the case it would be fine. Right now as you mention, GLA is definitely better at MP management, and PLD has no enmity generation moves over GLA aside from a 2 minute recast weaponskill.

Also, in terms of taking damage PLD has little to nothing over say WAR or GLA, which I beleive relates to block rate as well as overall defense.

[Shiggysonson]

Higher block rate is not going to solve the problem. PLD role is none other than to keep enmity, survive heavy damage, and their main source of survival and keeping enmity is in their MP and abilities. If GLA can do better in managing MP, and controlling enmity then it is not balanced.

So lets say paladins do get a better way of managing MP. What will happen to bards? Sure bards have other good abilities that make them great, but giving this ability to paladins is just adding another reason to take a black mage over a bard. Look at the big picture.

As I said, there are other ways to make paladins better than gladiators in a balanced party without ruining the balance of the system.

[Phobos]

So lets say paladins do get a better way of managing MP. What will happen to bards? Sure bards have other good abilities that make them great, but giving this ability to paladins is just adding another reason to take a black mage over a bard. Look at the big picture.

As I said, there are other ways to make paladins better than gladiators in a balanced party without ruining the balance of the system.

I do want to see BRD being used for its purpose, but I think its kind of silly that it basically NEEDS to refresh the PLD and likely the WHM. What about the other 5 people? They aren't necessarily mages and may be too close to the WHM or PLD where it's not easy to give them too many buffs. That and BRD should still be able to DD some rather than run around singing to everyone.

[Shiggysonson]

I do want to see BRD being used for its purpose, but I think its kind of silly that it basically NEEDS to refresh the PLD and likely the WHM. What about the other 5 people? They aren't necessarily mages and may be too close to the WHM or PLD where it's not easy to give them too many buffs. That and BRD should still be able to DD some rather than run around singing to everyone.

I haven't unlocked bard yet so I don't know how bards work 100%, but is there no way to split songs in a party? Especially for fights like ifrit where positioning the group is fairly easy. For example, have the white mage + black mages stand together for ballad, and have DoW stand somewhere else for accuracy or whatever it is they want. Of course this will be difficult for some fights, but nothing some coordination of the party can't fix. I mean bards did this for years in FFXI.

I do agree that bards should not be constantly running around to do songs as they can do some decent damage. However, the fact that SE decided to give them access to conjurer and thaumaturge abilities gives me the idea that the job was designed to act as more of a support than damage.

I just think the job system is so fragile in terms of balance. It seems very hard to get right where all jobs have their own unique, awesome abilities, but at the same time not so overpowered as to make classes and other jobs useless. In my opinion, they did a very good job with the balance. I'm not saying it's perfect and doesn't need any fixes. They just need to be VERY careful.

[Phobos]

I haven't unlocked bard yet so I don't know how bards work 100%, but is there no way to split songs in a party? Especially for fights like ifrit where positioning the group is fairly easy. For example, have the white mage + black mages stand together for ballad, and have DoW stand somewhere else for accuracy or whatever it is they want. Of course this will be difficult for some fights, but nothing some coordination of the party can't fix. I mean bards did this for years in FFXI.

I do agree that bards should not be constantly running around to do songs as they can do some decent damage. However, the fact that SE decided to give them access to conjurer and thaumaturge abilities gives me the idea that the job was designed to act as more of a support than damage.

I just think the job system is so fragile in terms of balance. It seems very hard to get right where all jobs have their own unique, awesome abilities, but at the same time not so overpowered as to make classes and other jobs useless. In my opinion, they did a very good job with the balance. I'm not saying it's perfect and doesn't need any fixes. They just need to be VERY careful.

I agree they need to be careful, which is why my suggestions were that they make Outmaneuver (an ability we already have) actually do something rather than the occasional lucky 9MP return on a block, and possibly change Spirits Within (2 minute recast) to give some MP rather than do more damage based on HP.

I don't want MP donated to me to make things super easy, but we should be compelled to use jobs in a party. On Ifrit the Bard was a little wary of having to give me Ballad, as he was afraid he'd have to get too close. This to me suggests there would be a lot of running around with potential danger depending on where you're running to.

I'm hoping to get a few more long duration fights under my belt with PLD, likely using meds and hoping to get a BRD to come along, and hopefully others who have done this can elaborate on whether its viable or not.

I just don't think using jobs should make things more tedious/difficult/dangerous for party play(in the case of the BRD having to run around to potentially dangerous spots to buff ppl).

Other things I saw was as the BLM's died they could not raise each other, but I think just 1 or 2 of them need to be on THM or you need a WHM paying attention to them. I don't consider those issues as they will hopefully get worked out as players get a little more experience with this. I do hope PLD will be this way, but to me, it's not looking so as GLA can survive better right now (even with a BRD). The only survival move is Hallowed Ground, which only lasts 15 seconds and only works for Physical Damage, so you don't gain much.

EDIT: you also mention FFXI. Bards there were easier to fit into alliances as you had 18 spots as opposed to 8, just saying.

[Andrien]

So lets say paladins do get a better way of managing MP. What will happen to bards? Sure bards have other good abilities that make them great, but giving this ability to paladins is just adding another reason to take a black mage over a bard. Look at the big picture.

As I said, there are other ways to make paladins better than gladiators in a balanced party without ruining the balance of the system.

A better way is to add equipments with:
mp refresh.
an accessory that mitigate a percentage of damage to restore some mp.
refresh trait

I can think of more that is not game breaking.

[Reaujien]

Higher block rate is not going to solve the problem. PLD role is none other than to keep enmity, survive heavy damage, and their main source of survival and keeping enmity is in their MP and abilities. If GLA can do better in managing MP, and controlling enmity then it is not balanced.

It's not like curing is 90% or even 80% of their total threat generating abilities combined. Yeah, it's definitely a fundamental part of it, but I disagree that it's the primary source. A few well-placed/timed Holy Succors on party members or a well-timed Sacred Prism > Cure generates a great deal amount of threat on their own - couple those with Provoke, Flash, Flat Blade combo, Sentinel, Rampart, War Drum, and even just straight damage, there's a lot a PLD can do to hold threat in addition to healing.

It's not like you have to keep spamming your curing spells all the time - you'll just drain your MP pool.

[Phobos]

It's not like curing is 90% or even 80% of their total threat generating abilities combined. Yeah, it's definitely a fundamental part of it, but I disagree that it's the primary source. A few well-placed/timed Holy Succors on party members or a well-timed Sacred Prism > Cure generates a great deal amount of threat on their own - couple those with Provoke, Flash, Flat Blade combo, Sentinel, Rampart, War Drum, and even just straight damage, there's a lot a PLD can do to hold threat in addition to healing.

It's not like you have to keep spamming your curing spells all the time - you'll just drain your MP pool.

All of this is doable on GLA except for Holy Succor, which you mentioned is not that large compared to other abilities for enmity. GLA can also recover MP so it can do more AOE Cures over a long fight than PLD.

Edit: There's that word "threat" again... What's next, toon?