Simple Fix to PLD

[ChickNorris]

Why thread took so long to move....

Moderator 1: Oh man....not again...
Moderator 2: What's up?
M1: There is another thread claiming that PLD is broken! It's....oh jesus christ, 24 pages long!
M2: You have to read it and decide where it goes, you saw it first.
M1: Saw what?
M2: The thread....oh, I see what you are trying to do, it won't work.
M1: Damn.

M1: Hey...do you think they will ever figure out PLD?
M2: Well, I hope so...I can't take much more of this.

And after several hours of reading actual issues, they had time to come back and move this thread.

[NoctisUmbra]

Oh, look! Someone who thinks PLD is fine and the rest of us just don't know how to play it!

*Stares cautiously so as to not disturb the rare species in its natural habitat.*

[SwordCoheir]

Oh, look! Someone who thinks PLD is fine and the rest of us just don't know how to play it!

*Stares cautiously so as to not disturb the rare species in its natural habitat.*

Oy, its one of the most dangerous creatures alive! I'ma go poke it with a stick!

(Poor humor I know, but I couldn't resist XP)

[Dragon]

You guys are just inefficient.

It's only 7 pages long here.

[Klive]

6. Ability to protect party members, Sorry but collusion beats cover in every way.

Collusion and cover shouldn't even be compared. Cover is any extremely useful ability, if you are waiting to lose threat to use it, you are doing it wrong. You should be throwing it on a melee every chance you can. It makes any stray damage or AoE go to you. It makes it that monk or dragoon able to move to the front of the monster to start a front combo, with no threat of them taking damage.

The paladin's strength is reducing the need to heal the party, saving the WHM effort. We don't see this because we avoid using melee in most fights. I already covered cover. Divine Veil makes casting cure heal all the melee, that saves the WHM mana and effort. The paladin's heal is designed to be most useful healing other over himself. Hallowed ground when paired with cover makes another party member invincible. All the paladin's abilities are far more useful when melee dps is near him.... and all we do is stack BLMs and bards.

The paladin will remain broken until we start trying to work with what the paladin has to offer. Granted speed runs and raid timers don't allow for much experimentation. The paladin and warrior may both be tanks, but they are as different as night and day. At least, that is my humble view.

[Aion]

make Holy Succor instant cast
stance that makes all damage blocked converted into hate in expense to lowered damage dealt/block rate
add trait for rampart that increase m def

[Evaddaragon]

Well, the way the game is currently designed, NO jobs have traits. NONE. So anyone suggesting PLD having a trait would have to devise some trait for ALL jobs. Somehow, I just don't see SE doing that. I see them giving adjustments to AF gear, and/or adjustments to current in-game skills.

I've already suggested making magical attacks blockable, and I still stand by it being my no.1 suggestion. Increasing natural block rate, too. That is, according to me, the no.1 priority.

For the love of god, allow shield users to parry as well as block. It was stupid back in 1.19, it still is stupid, and it will always be. Either bring back manual guarding if it's because of the current game's limitations or find some other way, I don't care. Bring it back.

Making Holy Succor instant cast certainly wouldn't hurt, but honestly, you have problems casting it so bad that it has killed you before ? Can't say I have this problem, what with Holy Succor being a 2 second cast and easily timeable between attacks. I'd have other fixes before that, really, but hey, if most PLDs suck that SE makes my job easier, who am I to complain ?

A lot people diss on AF because it doesn't add HP. Simply adding about 200-250 HP on the entire set would, combined with the skills enhancement, make it desirable to a lot. Honestly, in a full party, using HP food and making magic attacks blockable, would already help lots. Also, I'd change the enhancement from the legs to increasing Divine Veil's effect by something like 5 seconds. The way we currently play, we'd have more use for that instead of slightly increasing the regen effect... but if you absolutely want to keep it the way it is, then PLEASE make the regen effect work on OURSELVES as well, and allow us to activate by casting cure on ourselves. NO, it would NOT make it overpowered. It would give PLD increased survivability. Period.

Now, I know some don't want SE to make adjustments to WAR, but considering the current game mechanics, I'd say it's not really avoidable. However, making adjustments doesn't mean weakening. Changing WAR's subclass of GLA to LNC, for example. Losing Flash, Rampart and Sentinel to gain, for example, Invigorate, Blood for Blood and Keen Flurry. No one here can actually make me believe that WAR would suddenly lose its ability to tank, and that the increased damage wouldn't be welcomed. Not only that, but it would further help differentiate the two ways of tanking. WAR would still have provoke, foresight, antagonize, collusion, second wind, featherfoot to keep hate/mitigate damage. While this is about "fixing PLD", "balancing" also sometimes mean changing things or OTHERs in order to bridge the gap. Such could be the case here.

If PLD is to have MRD as a subclass, make it more useful. As it stands right now, only Provoke and Bloodbath have a use as a PLD. If you bring back parrying to shield users, Foresight can also be useful... However, I'd bring an idea that NO ONE has raised yet : Make Rampage available to other classes. Now, bear with me : I'm not actually considering the HP drain effect from crits. However, I AM considering the increased attack speed (faster TP and hate generation) and increased defense, however small defense actually matters.

I still think the way to "fix" PLD is to make it sturdier. I can live with the fact it has less HP as long as it takes far less damage than WAR. That may not solve the current community's mindset of doing speed runs, but as more content (that will not just be dungeons) is implemented, it will make PLDs a lot more desirable.

[lordvr]

Divine veil should simply apply the extra regen without any need for whm cures.

[Hoshikogi]

Since many people tend to prefer a WAR over a PLD, primarily due to their inately higher damage, I believe an ability that temporarily increases the physical/magical damage output (Morale) of all party members would be perfect (since all of the paladin's most useful survival/hate holding abilities are aultruistic; PLD is all about helping the party and sacrificing self). And to prevent the repercussions of increased party damage output on hate control, this ability would also provide a small group hate transfer to the paladin for the duration of the ability.

For example, a 15%-25% physical/magical damage output increase and a ~10% hate transfer from each party member for 10-20 seconds. This would be on at minimum a 1 minute cooldown. Note that this ability would not increase the user's damage or modifiy the hate from the pld's abilities/attacks**.

I believe this to be a decent means to repairing PLD's desirability within a party without the need to destroy warrior's damage per second.

[ChickNorris]

Oh, look! Someone who thinks PLD is fine and the rest of us just don't know how to play it!

*Stares cautiously so as to not disturb the rare species in its natural habitat.*

Actually, I do think that it is fine. There is what PLD is and people's preconceptions of what it should be...there is the reality of the job and imaginary wishing. I tend to play the game that is designed, not wish for it to be what I think it should be...with something like this, even more so. Everyone has previous tank or PLD classes they have played. It would probably be able to fly if it had all the qualities imagined for it by players.

I did not say if anyone did or did not know how to play anything. I understand you had to work that in to make your joke, but just the same, that isn't what I said.

Perhaps if the discourse worked more along the lines of what Klive wrote, the discussion would turn to something a bit more helpful.

And I am not rare, not by a long shot. I saw just today a PLD tank for AV. I have done Cutter's with a PLD tank. It isn't always a question of which one lets you spam through and get the shiny stuff. Actually, maybe they can merge the drop rate threads in with the PLD needs ______ changed ones. They seem to have a commonality.