Simple Fix to PLD

[NoctisUmbra]

Take a war's ability to normally tank away and you make all parties dependant on one of the least played jobs in the game.

I propose no changes to WAR. None at all. Only to PLD.

[NoctisUmbra]

If paladin had a boost to damage you could play it outside of dungeons as well in solo/lowman/etc without being completely worthless and not having to just play another job (warrior), and this goes for gladiator too, it's a sword problem. Trying to fix paladin to put it into these shitty dungeons is not the way to go, you're just putting terribly conceived bandaids on it, and you'll have to do so every time there's a new form of content. This isn't to say it should ever get area damage abilities, or out-damage warriors, but it has to fill the tank slot with some form of comparable output to ever be worth anything. This isn't XI.

How do you consider warrior not a perfectly well rounded job? It has more mitigation tools than paladin and their heals are better outside of bosses without fear of being interrupted, and it kills things in the process instead of having casting time, and it has no MP worries. Warrior has no weakness and can solo entire strongholds. How's that for making sense of jobs?

Oh wait, it's "not going to happen"

WAR, like many of the DDs, lacks an effective healing utility. It is dependent on an off-class Second Wind and Bloodbath.

Also, jobs were never designed to be effective for solo/lowman. Honestly now.

Even when they first introduced Paladin they mentioned how it would be sacrificing HP from GLA for greater defense and powerful white magic. Alongside that I've analyzed a PLD's skill-set and used SE's own design as support for my proposed fix.

Now if you believe WAR to be over-powered and much too well-rounded as opposed to the other jobs, then you must be suggesting that it be nerfed. You said it, not me.

[Stufoo]

Also, jobs were never designed to be effective for solo/lowman. Honestly now.

I just said it was a gladiator problem too, you idiot. Swords suck and no one is going to play a terrible tank that has to haul 6 DDs around to get anything done anywhere.

WAR, like many of the DDs, lacks an effective healing utility.

Yeah sure.

[NoctisUmbra]

I just said it was a gladiator problem too, you idiot. Swords suck and no one is going to play a terrible tank that has to haul 6 DDs around to get anything done anywhere.



Yeah sure.

Outstanding contribution there.

[Brannigan]

WAR, like many of the DDs, lacks an effective healing utility. It is dependent on an off-class Second Wind and Bloodbath.

Also, jobs were never designed to be effective for solo/lowman. Honestly now.

Even when they first introduced Paladin they mentioned how it would be sacrificing HP from GLA for greater defense and powerful white magic. Alongside that I've analyzed a PLD's skill-set and used SE's own design as support for my proposed fix.

Now if you believe WAR to be over-powered and much too well-rounded as opposed to the other jobs, then you must be suggesting that it be nerfed. You said it, not me.

Uh, off-class abilities are part of the job. It's one of the reasons Paladin sucks - its subclasses are horrible. You can't discount second wind just because a warrior needs to level pgl a bit to pick it up. Many jobs are perfectly well rounded for their role - monk has decent survivability despite doing great damage, white mage retained some good survivability skills and can put up decent damage against mobs like coincounter. Warrior is a perfectly crafted tank and killing machine that's far better for soloing than marauder. The idea that jobs are for party play only kind of goes out the window when pretty much every job is way better than its class counterpart at everything.

Bringing up paladin's damage to somewhere within the realm of not laughable and its hp up by like 200 would leave us with:

warrior:
-tanking
-boss damage
-aoe damage

paladin:
-tanking
-slightly lower boss damage
-some party healing

[NoctisUmbra]

My reason for mentioning Second Wind as off-class was meant to point out that it is lower in effect to the 900+ heal it is on PGL/MNK. I dont mean to discount any off-class skills.

Also, I suppose it's worth mentioning that I am not particularly opposed to PLD getting a buff to damage. I don't see it as the primary problem is all. GLA has been a defensive class from the very beginning, and PLD is naturally the same. When it comes to offering a solution for that, I would suggest them adding 2-handed great swords with high base damage to offer flexibility and choice, though that would be more for GLA than PLD. I don't want to derail the thread so I'll leave it at that.

[buritoslicer]

exactly how I feel.

[ThePatriarch]

I just said it was a gladiator problem too, you idiot.

We have a winnar.

On topic, I agree. Liked!

[Enfarious]

yeah thats what exactly happen in xi pld became useless once monk hp pool became so high and nin just being able to almost evade everything and even dnc could eva tank. pld in xi had just about no dd capability so as the caps got higher it was in less demand.just hope gla/pld in this doesn't become useless.

you left out thf.SE managed to revive pld by offering up NMs that would one-shot eva tanks, it killed me cause all of a sudden my nin thf dnc and to some degree mnk became worthless for some activities. But then again my pld friends served up a purpose again.

I play healer 90% of the time and as such I love when a, well played, paladin is in the group. Tanking or not, a paladin bring a lot of ability that greatly increases a party's survivability.

Just a few things I've seen a great paladin do, when not tanking.
-Time his rampart with the warrior;s rampart making rampart up 100% of the fight.
-Use enmity WS with collusion, granting extra enmity to the warrior.
-Throw cover on the tank when the tank had low hp, get a block, use spirits, and help heal the tank.
-Covering melee so he can start is front combo line,
-With single WHM run the tank died. The paladin took threat, used Hallowed ground, tanked while raising the dead tank. Then took over tanking.
-Take over healing when the WHM died. No really! Everyone gets better mana regen when in passive mode. He healed until the bard could get the WHM back up.

A well played paladin is fantastic and can replace the need for a second WHM. I love running with paladins, sadly few groups let them. Good paladins stop wipes from happening and have the tools to do it.

Isn't NOT doing things like this kind of the point, to have a pld and a war in a pt the smart choice SHOULD be a war geared for dmg and a pld geared for well, plding.
The idea that w/ both in a pt together lead to the pld playing a support role is bass-ackwards counter intuitive and just plain busted. In a setup like that the smart money should be on pld tanking every time w/ the war serving as a "rescue" tank.
This is your single most glaring bit of evidence that pld is busted and needs to be fixed. War can DD w/ the rest of em and should be allowed to, all the DD jobs have a HP revoery of some kind(lnc/drg is busted granted) that doesn't make them a default tank. pgl/mnk can tank well enough if needed too but the simple fact is pld should tank, the rest are DD jobs and should really be allowed to work as such whenever possible. I'm sure that just like in most MMOs more classes will be added ... They've already got those planned don't they? I'm sure other tank capable jobs will emerge, but pld really should be the one that people say, "Hey see if we can't get a pld to tank this, if not we can settle for XXX." not the other way around.

[Razor]

First let me say I entirely agree with your post, but I think you need to add one more ingredient to the perfect PLD recipe: enmity.

The bigger problem is hate control. I used to main GLA/PLD since OB but after WAR came out as a logical minded person I had to make the switch to WAR. I have challenged several PLDs to a "tanking contest" where I let them pull a mob, build hate on a mob, and then go crazy on it. Sadly, with JUST regular melee, I get into yellow, my first ws combo gets me red. Even after they have it for 30 seconds if I start my enmity rot there is absolutely nothing they can do to get the mob back.

In that lies my point, it is inefficient to use the PLD tank over a WAR tank because the DDs are handicapped. Not only does it make the fight more stressful but also drastically increases the length of the fight. Even if PLD takes less damage, the total amount of damage sustained is still higher because of a longer fight; for example:

Ifrit with WAR tank takes us an average of 6 minutes, Ifrit on PLD took closer to 10~11 (when he did a lot of plumes, if not his regen carries the fight to 15~)

Say ifrit hits my warrior for 250 damage per second. 6x60 = 360 sec x 250 dmg = 90,000 damage sustained
For paladin, we'll be generous and say 180 dps (20% damage reduct). 10x60 = 600 x 180 = 108,000+. (Longer fights and this number gets goofy large.)

Point is, PLD can get all the defense in the world but unless DDs can use their full strength on the boss, PLD will remain inferior. Not just for speed runs but for safety and smoothness of the fight. My LS has a MNK who on ifrit crits howling fist for 850+. On PLD that attack will pull hate off me even as late as phase 2. On WAR he can howling fist, simian trash, dragon kick, and hundred all in succession with the mob still placed on me. Why would we choose a tanking option that requires him to basically throw away all his dps?