Simple Fix to PLD

[Aceofspades]

It is snide "o ye simpleton" comments like this that prove that you are simply incapable of analyzing the problem with something you like.

That seems to be a pretty common problem these days. Critical thinking must no longer be taught in school. (>.> ) And if you are indeed such a glorious Paladin, you should realize that the damage reduced by a partial block is but a fraction of that off of a partial parry.

So not only does Warrior do better damage, have a couple of options for restoring its own HP, have an additional enmity bonus action that Paladin does not, have an additional ability that reflects 50% of a physical blow back at the target, have a stance to increase Haste, Defense, and restore HP with each critical landed, have an ability which, while not a guaranteed dodge, is pretty darn close (Featherfoot), and have an ability to steal enmity off of an ally's attack, but it also mitigates damage better when abilities are down.

A single partial parry on a big attack is roughly analogous to two or three partial blocks. With that in mind, there is nothing that Paladin does that Warrior does not do better.

Cover is pointless if you're not losing hate. (>_> )

aye, never said blocking was perfect but to say its worthless is just wrong, coupling devine veil with stone skin (wich you can rely on, can not be said for parry) can deflect a ton of damage. That being said, sure I would love to see more damage get deflected per block, but, extra slot for added def, + even small damage deflection on blocks on an already hard tank is ample. I know the block stat is limited on shields but it dose make a hell of a differance if you can increase it considerably. I go with vintage for the def materia boosts , but thats just me. as far as "critical thinking gose" who cares how much parry can deflect, if you can not count on it to be there or at least be able to time the parry when you need it the essentually its point less, kinda like blowing all your money after buying a lottery ticket. sure you have a chance to win, but the risk is what makes it stupid to begin with. soo in that aspect of thing a garentee > chance reguardless of how gimped your block is. Yall talk like parry happens all the time, even with stats to buff this, its dosent happen often at all on bosses. sure you have a buff that helps this but soo do we, and pld has ageious boon that as a 90 second cool down (blocks 100% of a physcial attack) and devine veil, 60 cool down wich is 100% block rate for 20 seconds. even if you could get your war to partial parry every 90 second (wich i seriously doubt) pld still blocks more damage with shield. again everything you posted screams " I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT TANKING ON PLD!"

[SwordCoheir]

Umm, you seem to go to great lengths to disregard what people write. Prior to this update (and 1.21a for that matter) the damage negated by a shield was almost negligible to the amount of damage that could be taken. As I pointed out, I could partial parry something like Coincounters 100 Tonze Swing which would normally be devastating for either job to under 600, if I blocked the same move with my shield w/o Aegis Boon chances are I would be lucky to see 100-200 damage taken off the top of the 3k+ move.

Even with Divine Viel addition you would have had to block at least 15 times to make up for that one random partial parry, and pre-1.21a there was little difference in the proc rate between parry and shield so you'd take forever just to make up for that single random parry in mitigation. So I don't see how your argument's are any more valid than his.

However this recent shield update looks promising. I've thus far been negating 50% of the damage taken whenever I block with my Vintage Kite Shield regardless of how much or little damage I take. The block rate increase is noticeable, but frankly still feels a little lacking.

[Aceofspades]

Umm, you seem to go to great lengths to disregard what people write. Prior to this update (and 1.21a for that matter) the damage negated by a shield was almost negligible to the amount of damage that could be taken. As I pointed out, I could partial parry something like Coincounters 100 Tonze Swing which would normally be devastating for either job to under 600, if I blocked the same move with my shield w/o Aegis Boon chances are I would be lucky to see 100-200 damage taken off the top of the 3k+ move.

Even with Divine Viel addition you would have had to block at least 15 times to make up for that one random partial parry, and pre-1.21a there was little difference in the proc rate between parry and shield so you'd take forever just to make up for that single random parry in mitigation. So I don't see how your argument's are any more valid than his.

However this recent shield update looks promising. I've thus far been negating 50% of the damage taken whenever I block with my Vintage Kite Shield regardless of how much or little damage I take. The block rate increase is noticeable, but frankly still feels a little lacking.

realy? no I said counting on a parry to land when its needed is folly, and is folly to compare parry to block considering all the abilities PLD has to insure a block happens. you said it your self "w/o aegis boon" fact is , you can save aegis boon for that move if you soo wish, personally , I would perfer just to dodge the damn thing, not like he dosent give you 12 seconds to run away from it first and then another 15 to get back to your spot while he sits on his ass. again a garentee > a chance any day.

[SwordCoheir]

Yes, yes you do, or the main points posters make just fly over your head.

I was using 100 Tonze Swing as an example because it's one of the more devastating attacks out there and provides good solid contrast between the damage reduced by Parry AND Block. PLD probably had a significant advantage with a shield on weak mobs pre-1.22 because the block mechanics allowed them to take off 100-200 damage off the top, but falls very significantly short the more damaging moves tend to be, which is anything in this game that's worth half a salt. Basically put the weaker the mob the stronger shields mitigation is, the stronger the mob the stronger parry's mitigation stands out.

I try to avoid Aegis Boon as a solid argument between the two jobs because WAR gets Foresight which is a comparable ability and in both cases they do the same thing which is negate an attack. Pre-1.21a we only had outmaneuver which the block rate increase is laughable at best, providing little to no advantage over parry rates in combat.

Considering Divine Veils adjustment just happened using it as a crutch to help justify shields are fine in your previous post actually proved the opposite, if shields were "just fine" they wouldn't have made the adjustment to Divine Veil to begin with. If PLD's defense, damage mitigation, and enmity generation was so monumental over WAR no adjustments would be happening.

I admit I am like you in the sense that I have had little to no problems tanking on PLD with DD's/Mages going all out, but I've spent alot of time on both WAR and PLD testing gear, abilities, and game mechanics and comparing results to documented information to see thing's have really been in WAR's favor since job implementation.

But seriously man, you sound like the most anti-job buff person I've ever met.

[Enfarious]

I just can't wait til 1.22b to see if maybe this last "buff" would really help, maybe I'm missing something but my block rate isn't that much better, and the dmg reduction at this point seems like maybe 1% more than it was, I still eat 80% on blocked hits.
War also still out tanks pld. and after spending some time in a pt w/ ppl other than me on drg mnk and war the wars dmg output was higher than theirs and it's survivability far outshone all of ours. Maybe it's just me but every time I read something about WAR isn't overpower I start to turn rabid. That people try to defend WAR as being no better than every other class/job is like people defending hitler as not evil.

Not super on topic but not off either:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...l=1#post668926

[SwordCoheir]

Just out of curiosity what shield are you using Enfarious? I've been blocking 50% damage across the board with a Vintage Kite Shield (I haven't tested on anything big yet like Ifrit mind you), but I'm just wondering how drastic the damage differences are with different shields.

[Enfarious]

Um it's not a kite, it's little I don't member the name, just a buckler. I'd think my rate would be higher with a smaller shield w/ less dmg reduction, but I'm talking me as a 50 and a 52 hittin me and there's ~20% reduction w/ 30% block rate, I gotta get another shield or 6 to see what it's really like w/ other larger shields.

[SwordCoheir]

Aright cool, I haven't messed with smaller shield sizes yet so I'm just trying to add some info since they changed shields around this last update.

[Enfarious]

Shit I just did CC and forgot to look at the diff after I got a diff shield lol

Drifting: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...l=1#post659711

[MoarLegion]

A cursory look at WAR and PLD lead me to conclude they were designed within the idea of "main tank" and "off tank." The idea was that you bring a PLD as the person doing the bulk of the tanking, and the the WAR is there to tank when an additional tank is needed, but is primarily a DD.

The idea isn't that you CAN'T use a WAR as a MT, but that PLD, being wholly specialized in a tank role, should be the superior choice. My argument is rooted in Hybrid vs Specialized, because that is what each classes' design seems to point at: The hybrid WAR, the specialized PLD.

1) Reduce WAR damage:
Insofar as making a balanced class, this is the obvious route. Make them deal less damage to offset their ability to take hits. This allows them to still retain their versatility without outshining PLD in tanking.

2) Increase PLD enmity output/decrease WAR enmity output:
This requires prefacing: I believe that enmity control should be something a DD has to worry about. If going balls to the walls, willy nilly of enmity is required to clear content for a properly geared and competent party, that is poor design foremost.

If it remains that DD need to be capable of all cylinders firing DPS, then PLD needs to facilitate that completely by having more Enmity output, whereas a WAR tank should require more thought towards enmity control on behalf of the rest of the party.


3) Increase PLD survivability: This is actually pretty concurrent with the OP's suggestion. If a PLD took less damage or was able to mitigate that damage better(for example, say better self healing). Then this creates a situation where WAR, 5DD, 2WHM is mostly parallel to PLD 6DD WHM. Will WAR 5DD 2WHM get the job done? Certainly, but PLD 6DD WHM will have an easier time.

4) Increase PLD survivability and minor increase in enmity, decrease WAR enmity output:
This is my preferred answer, mostly because it brings the two classes down onto the same level. This also facilitates WAR 5DD 2WHM being roughly equal to PLD 6DD WHM.

How to achieve this balance has been brought up by many people, so I won't bother repeating it. However, I agree with several points brought up.

MP gaining ability, auto-refresh, or passive MP cost reduction.:
While I love the concept of resource management, it seems to me that MP is drained far too quickly. The MP pool tends to bottom out very quickly and cannot be regained nearly as quick or in amounts significant to do anything with.

Ideas:
Give Spirits Within a MP restore component(say 1/4th to 1/2 the damage dealt.)
Give Outmaneuver increased MP gain on block(I think any pld in their right mind would agree the current amount restored per block is laughable at best and useless at worst.)
(Stolen from WoW) Allow heals on the PLD to return a % of MP, either static or based on the amount healed. (Say, 2% of MAX mp every time the pld is healed, or 25% of the amount healed also restores MP)


Give Parry back to shield users, or vastly increase the mitigation provided by block.
Lets say parry completely negates damage. If something attacks 10 times for 10k total damage, and you parry twice, that means you've taken 2k less damage. Lets take the same numbers, except you shield block 4 attacks for 500 damage per blocked attack, you still take 2k less damage. Complete negation LOOKS better on paper, but so long as the end result is the effectively the same, it doesn't matter.
Likewise if you give parry back to PLD, you increase their survivability by increasing their means of mitigating damage.


Or just nerf WAR into the ground, then there's no choice BUT to pick a PLD.