Guide to fixing PLD

[Daniel_Fury]

i'll admit i forgot about cover but so far i've not found much use for it. it typically requires someone to stand in harms way to get covered. either i dont notice it or the mp regen doesnt proc when your outside 8 yalms.

but i'd still consider the war in aces challenge thing to have the blinky red box more than the paladin. does cover generate emnity? i cant find anything that says yes.

Again i love the paladin class. but i can still tank more effectively on a war with a lot less effort.
every dd i play with says they can be more offensive with a warrior. no matter who tries to pld tank. basically saying "oh a pld tank i better hold back a little"

and imo thats the reason why nearly everyone i see be it people i know or people i dont use warriors. more effective with less effort

lol.
Spam holy succor on the war and they lose hate faster than you think

[Mijin]

I saw this PLD on my server stacking DEF materia, and eating DEF food the other day. I had a good laugh. I'll give you a clue who it was, he is one of the ones posting here about how great he is. XD XD

[SwordCoheir]

We have to be REALLY careful when bringing this up, because SE might make the stupid decision of nerfing WAR instead of buffing PLD.

I can see WAR getting some adjustments like to Rampages healing effect where it won't stack with AoEs to make it a little less self reliant, but I doubt we'll see anything major happening to it because WAR is pretty much designed as the HP/DPS meatshield tank it was meant to be.

But part of PLD's design was it was supposed to get increased defense and defensive capabilities at the expense of lower HP, and at update we lost the HP and gained Hallowed Ground and no defensive difference. The adjustment to Divine Veil was nice and welcomed, but if you just stack abilities and stats there still isn't much really separating PLD and WAR defensively to make up that heafty chunk of DPS WAR has.

[Mijin]

On the positive side, PLD has great looking AF! At least SE did that right... unlike lolmnk

[Duelle]

I can see WAR getting some adjustments like to Rampages healing effect where it won't stack with AoEs to make it a little less self reliant, but I doubt we'll see anything major happening to it because WAR is pretty much designed as the HP/DPS meatshield tank it was meant to be.

But part of PLD's design was it was supposed to get increased defense and defensive capabilities at the expense of lower HP, and at update we lost the HP and gained Hallowed Ground and no defensive difference. The adjustment to Divine Veil was nice and welcomed, but if you just stack abilities and stats there still isn't much really separating PLD and WAR defensively to make up that heafty chunk of DPS WAR has.

I think the bigger question to ask is, which is the standard and which doesn't fit?

If PLD is the standard as far as what defense a tank should have and what utility it has built-in, then I would suggest something I brought up in the Fix MRD thread several months ago, and that was give MRD and WAR stances that scaled with different stats. An offensive/DPS stance that scales with STR and a defensive stance that scales with VIT so that you don't have both things on the same job while keeping them performing as well as they currently are.

If WAR is the standard, then yes there is no question that PLD needs fixes and buffs to catch up.

[Mijin]

____________________________________________________________________

Hello! Producer/Director Yoshida here.

Even though we just released patch 1.22, I’d like to talk a bit about the plans for job/class balance adjustments that are to take place in patch 1.22b. With multiple jobs/classes and well as monsters and battle content in mind, some effects will need to be, as they say, "nerfed." I apologize.

Warrior and Marauder Adjustments
Our stance is to refrain from nerfing things as much as possible and we have performed and looked into adjustments up till now, but we have boosted warrior’s specs to a very high level. They’re at the point where they have stable enmity, high-damaging AoE attacks, and high defense, which is calling for a slight nerf. We apologize for this.

We will be making adjustments to Steel Cyclone, whose stats are currently too high.
Also, we will be enhancing the effect of Berserk and the attack power of Whirlwind in exchange for adjustments to the effect of Collusion.

Paladin and Gladiator
First, in order to raise the amount of damage they can output, we will be enhancing Goring Blade, Riot Blade, and Rage of Halone. Also, we will be getting rid of the max HP reduction when changing from gladiator to paladin and as a result will be making adjustments to increase their max HP. Additionally, we will be enhancing shield blocks. Besides these, if determined necessary for adjusting, there is the possibility that we adjust stats as well as enmity.

Dragoon and Lancer
We are currently testing adjustments for dragoon and lancer so that they are able to elicit higher performance than now for long primal battles, raid bosses, and other battles. Basically we will be increasing the amount of damage done for critical hits and making adjustments so that the job becomes closer to our planned image of the job.

*For specific adjustment information, once adjustments are finalized, we will be announcing the full details before the patch.

Paladin and Gladiator
First, in order to raise the amount of damage they can output, we will be enhancing Goring Blade, Riot Blade, and Rage of Halone. Also, we will be getting rid of the max HP reduction when changing from gladiator to paladin and as a result will be making adjustments to increase their max HP. Additionally, we will be enhancing shield blocks. Besides these, if determined necessary for adjusting, there is the possibility that we adjust stats as well as enmity.

____________________________________________________________________

Increase PLDs curing, enmity, and sword dmg. ==> It becomes viable to have PLD to effectively tank with one healer, and they can actually hold hate like a WAR. ==> PLD stops sucking.

I should work for the development team; I seriously doubt they play their own game.

In a addition to the things I already mentioned, more blocking would be nice

____________________________________________________________________

<- MFW baddies tell me I'm wrong.

[Aceofspades]

____________________________________________________________________




____________________________________________________________________




____________________________________________________________________

<- MFW baddies tell me I'm wrong.

1) increasing DPS is more then likely to give PLD a fighting chance in a PVP situation (wich is still in the works) and not soo much to increase enmity, side effects would make for slightly faster speed runs with a PLD tank but not worth noting (pending on dps output adjustment)

2) more blocking was done with the first patch that gave devine veil a 100% block rate for 20 seconds. useing this ability alone should increasy any PLDs block rate by about 40% , increasing the effectiveness of the block is completly different, and although I agree it would be great, honestly block works on physical damage only, if you stoped waisting your time and gil on HP materia on used vit and def you wouldnt even notice the difference to begin with.

3) enmity adjustment is still yet to be decided ,Think they are gona see if the materia stat increase is enough to fix the (non) issue.

4) you are forgetting the entire role of any tank , much less a PLD. PLDs heal and deflect damage, soo far we have two ways to heal ourselves and both consist of mp usage and cast times wich include a chance for interuption. This is the only real issue with PLD. As a tank we are supposed to take hit, getting hit greatly increases the chance to have your spell cast interupted.... soo why would a tank who is built around self heals and damage deflection not have an instant cast heal ability or at least an ability or stance that alows ALL CASTS to be uninteruptable.

No , you actually ARE wrong. Increasing DPS is counter productive on a tank that gets no natural buffs or bonuses for doing damage. And Im sorry , PLD dose shit for damage and still holds hate as well as WAR on boss mobs. Can WAR eventually steal hate from the PLD , it sure can, but if your a dd and not a tank, why would you TRY to steal hate? The ONLY benifit from increasing DPS on a PLD would to only slightly increast the speed of a win. This can be acheived much faster through simply allowing PLD to safely replace a healer and allow for DD to take its place.

Let me explain why useing DPS as a source of enmity build is folly for a main tank.

1) forces tanks to focus on yet another stat that is supposed to be mainly for DPS ( accuracy, as well as str, or atk.)

2) reguardless of the amount of accuarcy on a tank, because boss mobs are soo much higher in level then ourselves , its more likely to miss , in this situation more misses = less enmity.... I know , rocket science right.

3) the more time a tank takes away from self buffs, simple manuvers and self heals to do combos and attacks the less servivable they are, simple instant vokes are more efficient for holding hate when your job is to stay alive. I understand some of the most powerfull enmity tools a PLD has are combos. personally, I belive this to be a mistake. Timing combos and attacks , worrying about TP and accuracy is stuff for the DPS not the tank.

[Sasagawa]

Other then Mijin , I agree with most that has been posted here, except for the WAR generates more hate faster. This is situational.

Basically your right. we can generate a Ton of hate using aoe rampart. however the main problem at the min is noone really uses melee parties even though with a PLD tank they can be awesome .

I agree with alot posted here especially the defence side of things

[Brannigan]

No , you actually ARE wrong. Increasing DPS is counter productive on a tank that gets no natural buffs or bonuses for doing damage. And Im sorry , PLD dose shit for damage and still holds hate as well as WAR on boss mobs. Can WAR eventually steal hate from the PLD , it sure can, but if your a dd and not a tank, why would you TRY to steal hate? The ONLY benifit from increasing DPS on a PLD would to only slightly increast the speed of a win. This can be acheived much faster through simply allowing PLD to safely replace a healer and allow for DD to take its place.

Let me explain why useing DPS as a source of enmity build is folly for a main tank.

1) forces tanks to focus on yet another stat that is supposed to be mainly for DPS ( accuracy, as well as str, or atk.)

2) reguardless of the amount of accuarcy on a tank, because boss mobs are soo much higher in level then ourselves , its more likely to miss , in this situation more misses = less enmity.... I know , rocket science right.

3) the more time a tank takes away from self buffs, simple manuvers and self heals to do combos and attacks the less servivable they are, simple instant vokes are more efficient for holding hate when your job is to stay alive. I understand some of the most powerfull enmity tools a PLD has are combos. personally, I belive this to be a mistake. Timing combos and attacks , worrying about TP and accuracy is stuff for the DPS not the tank.

You can get like 96-98% hit rate on Garuda as warrior with minimal accuracy gear + bard song. Flame Sergeant Sash, NQ accuracy rings, and explorer's choker. Garuda seems to have pretty high frontal evasion too. Hitting your skills is an important part of being a tank in any game. Hit rate isn't a new thing to be concerned about, it's always been important. It's just that no one needed accuracy before because full party buff was bugged. Now, everyone needs some accuracy.

Doing combos doesn't really take away from using provoke, flash, aegis, etc. because all of those things have rather significant cooldowns. Worrying about accuracy is something that every single job does with the exception of possibly WHM. TP is a universal resource for all melee classes and as long as paladins wield swords and not wands they'll want to pay attention to it.

[Aceofspades]

Yes PLD needs to land its attacks, no acc shouldnt be on the priority list. top 5 should always be def>vit>mind>block>hp, sounds more like reaching for excuses to justify replacing tank stats for dps stats.