Simple Fix to PLD

[Jinko]

They should have a passive ability that increases enmity based on damage received, plus a 20% reduction in all physical damage.

Does Defence even work properly on boss fights, ie dlvl > defence.

I've yet to pull hate off a PLD with either WHM or BLM (unless I was being careless), I duno how it if for melee.

[Brannigan]

I don't know that passive damage reduction is a good solution - it could create problems down the line. Rather than that, I'd like to see paladin and warrior get a little closer to each other in effectiveness while maintaining their distinct play styles. That way you could choose a paladin OR a warrior as your main tank and basically just have it be up to the player's preference.

Raising Paladin damage on a single target to within like 75% of a tanking warrior's would be a good start. That could be done with looser combo conditions, buffing Flat Blade a bit (damage wise), or something else entirely. Leveling out GLA and MRD HP would be good too. Warrior still gains, Paladin still loses, but the gap isn't as wide.

That would leave us with Warrior, who has higher damage (but not insanely higher like now) and AOE damage (which paladin has none of), and Paladin, who trades AOE and some damage for shield skills and some healing.

Also this really should be in the paladin forums. I've seen the flat mitigation suggestion a lot there .

[Wevlum]

Even if it doesn't solve the PLD problem I'd like the idea of jobs having their own trait (currently only classes have traits). Be even better if they passed on their trait in the form of a slightly watered down version to their party; i.e. if PLD's ...IM A PLD? trait is -25% damage reduction everyone else in party might get a -10% damage reduction just from having a PLD in the party.

It'd also encourage people to not class stack since you only get one party trait per job i.e. having two PLDs is still -10% damage reduction not 20. Also yeah jobs not classes because jobs are supposedly supposed to be the preferred party class so bonuses to the party for using a job rather than just personal bonuses would be nice.

[NoctisUmbra]

Alright, so I feel like now's a good time to make a 2nd post in here to address some posts.

Defense: lol, Defense is not the problem. It does nothing for magic-based attacks and is not the same as % based mitigation.

I'll get the lols out of the way first. I'm going to give Mog the benefit of the doubt here and say he's being silly by suggesting that this is a matter of Defense. However, it does provide a good opportunity to clarify for some others who may not be so informed. Defense, just like most other stats in FFXIV, don't make a significant difference on their own as they are based on calculations that involve dLevel (dLv). When facing enemies that are significantly lower in level than yourself (a large dLv) stats become very effective per point, however when facing enemies who are significantly higher in level than yourself (a negative dLv), such as primals and various bosses, we find that they are greatly diminished in effect. I suggest everyone take a look at the extensive testing done by Kaeko and Seiken for the delicious number crunching.

Setting aside the fact that Defense does nothing in the way of mitigating magical damage, which tends to be what many bosses use as their most devastating skills, it is also greatly diminished at most endgame scenarios where we face enemies greater in level than ourselves. Going further into this, this thread is primarily about PLD as a tank vs WAR, and in turn overall class/job balance. Wearing more Defense is something a player can do both on PLD and WAR, and thus is not a solution to propose for fixing PLD.

Enmity: Tougher to hold hate on PLD, but overall very much possible to do. Ultimately not the problem.

There are various reasons why people have come to the conclusion that WAR holds better hate than PLD. Before I get into it in a bit more detail, let me say it bluntly first: Yes, as it stands, WAR has better capability in enmity generation than PLD. However, the solution here isn't simply giving PLD a massive enmity-generation buff. It has the necessary tools already, however it's primary tool for accumulating hate is not damage like it is the case with WAR. It's more about clever use of abilities and healing hate.

You see, WAR is not difficult. When tanking on WAR, you're actually just being a DD that doesn't manage enmity, instead thrives on it (sound familiar?), and you're going apeshit while you act as a damage sponge with your large pool of HP. In short, as a WAR you're just facerolling the keyboard. Just blarghwrwujyerrwuknfdv... so to speak. A PLD on the other hand plays more like NNGGGFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF!... as you try ever so hard to make sure you're following the right cooldowns, stacking the right skills, and more importantly than the rest, curing yourself with Holy Succor every chance you get to make sure you stay alive due to what little HP you have. It's hectic. So while it's more effortless and direct on WAR, it's much more work and less obvious on PLD. Right now, that may seem unjustified, unbalanced, unfair... un-whatever. What I see there is not a problem though, but an opportunity so to speak. There's a clear distinction between WAR and PLD as tanks. They're inherently different in style and use- or meant to be.

Now, as I said increasing PLD's enmity generation isn't the solution. It has access to Flash, Provoke, an Enhanced Rampart (which again works better when there are melee DDs in range to increase your hate generation as well as you increasing their defense. See the pattern here?), Sentinel, War Drum and 2 enmity generating combos. So ability-wise it's quite loaded with avenues of gathering hate especially in multi-mob scenarios. Its other primary source of enmity, healing, however isn't working as intended due to the simple fact that PLD takes too much damage to manage. For maximum hate generation, PLD should be healing other party members alongside the WHM. That's 50% more enmity gained from Holy Succor, and perhaps more importantly less enmity gained by the WHM. Double whammy! Also, let's not forget that 1.22 will be buffing the enmity values of materia, in which case it may just become common practice again for PLDs to prefer enmity-enhanced Winglets.

It's barely an issue now, and it will be even less of an issue with the materia reform and if they apply this %-based damage mitigation fix.

Health Points (HP): In most scenarios, taking less damage is more important than having more HP.

Taking less damage means getting healed less. It means overall greater safety and reliability. It also makes the tank easier to manage for a WHM. You won't see the HP bar value bouncing around like crazy as much as with WAR. Another benefit of being healed less by a WHM is that the WHM doesn't incur as much enmity.

Now, the important thing here is I don't mean to say that there won't be, or shouldn't be, scenarios where having more HP is more beneficial. I can even think of fights where having a DD-Tank like WAR is more beneficial even if PLD is to be fixed like this. That's not a problem though. The problem never was that WAR can tank, or tank well even. The problem is, and remains to be, that it can tank better than PLD in virtually every scenario. There are very few uses for a PLD right now and it's a shame. Having scenarios/strategies that prefer a WAR tank as well as scenarios/strategies that prefer a PLD tank is ideal. I'd go so far as to say that overall it should tip in PLD's favor, as it can do nothing but tank whereas a WAR is still a viable DD.

If you bothered to read inside the boxes, thank you for taking the time to read my obnoxiously long walls of text. If not, thanks anyway for your contributions. I feel that this is a very important matter in FFXIV and requires the proper attention, so I appreciate anyone who helps in that regard by providing healthy discussion and attracting the necessary attention to the topic at hand.

Note: I initially intended to post this on the PLD forums, however after thinking it through I decided on General, not primarily because it's visited much more, but because the post was relevant to the case of class/job balance and thus exceeded the boundaries of being a simple discussion of the PLD job.

[AlaulaTheGreat]

Also think need some kind of AoE damage that can challenge the damage and hate capabilities of War's AoE. I'm thinking maybe bring Circle Blade back.

[NoctisUmbra]

Also think need some kind of AoE damage that can challenge the damage and hate capabilities of War's AoE. I'm thinking maybe bring Circle Blade back.

As far as AoE hate generation goes, I feel that PLD's Flash, Rampart and War Drum do a sufficient job. Healing as well generates hate on every engaged mob, as opposed to damage. PLD, by design, is meant to hold hate not through damage but through abilities and healing. Therefore the problem isn't damage.

This is why I emphasize that the key point here is that using a PLD instead of a WAR should effectively free up a WHM slot, as PLD can act as a WHM. In order to accomplish this, it needs to be taking less damage. Until that scenario is fulfilled, PLD needs tweaking.

[Majidah]

20% is overpowered.

[jwang]

Reasons why PLD enmity pales in comparison to WAR

1. Sentinel is broken, so enmity is only boosted through damage. WAR will win with enmity boosts with both Antagonize for abilities and Steel Cyclone + Sentinel combo for damage.

2. Healing damage is spread among all mobs aggro'd. That means if you heal someone for 1000 HP and yourself for 500 HP with holy succor while engaged against 5 mobs, you generate 1500 HP healed * 0.6 healing enmity modifier / 5 mobs = 180 enmity on each mob. Not very impressive now is it?

3. The truly spammable enmity ability, Flat Blade, costs 1000 TP to use and does piddling damage against things that matter. I do at best 20 damage with Flat Blade combo against Ifrit, and even if it DOES have a +4.5x enmity modifier, that's only 100 enmity. Compared to Skull Sunder, which does ~100 damage against Ifrit and ALSO has an enmity modifier similar to Flat Blade, you can see why WARs are so much more impressive.

4. Enmity that can be generated by PLD pales in comparison to Warrior's Steel Cyclone, which gets stronger with each hit he takes while Rampage is up. Against ~Lvl50 mobs, I've been able to do up to 1800 damage to all mobs that I hit, and I can do this every 30 seconds while throwing in Whirlwind combos in between for ~900 damage each combo. That's up to 4500 enmity per minute, which is ridiculous. Throw in Antagonize and Sentinel and you make even more enmity, which makes it ludicrous.

As far as PLD damage mitigation and survival goes...

1. Most damage from things that matter are based on dLvl. This means defense is practically worthless, which makes the higher defense value on PLD that much less desirable. This is especially proven when Kaeko tanked Ifrit using CNJ.

2. The damage mitigated by shield block is not all that impressive, especially on bosses such as Ifrit. If it blocked more and for more damage, especially when Outmaneuver is up, it would definitely be worthwhile of more consideration.

3. Magical damage can only be mitigated through use of defensive abilities (Sentinel, Vengeance with AF), or simply absorbed by large amounts of HP. This WAR has in spades, while PLD is very lacking. If Tempered Will provided magic resists like it did prior to ability changes, then PLD might be able to once again match WAR in absorbing magic damage.

4. Yes PLD can heal himself. Sadly, these heals are cast as spells, and as such are subject to the same limitations. You cannot take excessive amounts of damage while casting, otherwise you get interrupted. You cannot move while casting, otherwise you get interrupted. You are limited to your MP pool to cast. Meanwhile, WARs just spam Bloodbath and Steel Cyclone and Second Wind and heals themselves on the run from an constantly refilling resource that is only limited by timer. Unfair? Yes, yes it is.

As soon as SE addresses these issues, PLD will once again become equally desirable as WAR. Or despised, if they decide to nerf WAR.

[NoctisUmbra]

20% is overpowered.

I can't say I disagree. It's worth noting that I offered 15-20% as a suggested value based on my general feel for the two jobs and their performances.

In the end, I propose the %-based damage mitigation of X value. SE should determine that X value, but do it by taking into consideration primarily how much would be needed for a PLD to sustain HP with only a single WHM and the 500 HP it gets in return from Holy Succor instead of the primary 1k.

[fusional]

because holding hate on pld isnt the problem ?

uh, yes it is.

when your melee and blms are doing 150+ dps on mistress, holding hate *is* the problem. it is the *only* problem.