Paladin balance changes suggestions

[AbremSev]

This is how it already works though. You flash PoA and it applies immediately and for 5 seconds. All buffs that don't have timer on them last at least for 5 seconds. If you are channeling PoA you are using it wrong.

It's true that it lasts for a few seconds and you can snapshot the mitigation for a raidwide. However if that raidwide has multiple hits like Ahk Mourn or J waves from TEA it just ends up sucking. They can't even use it for the damage on simple spread mechanics. The additional limitation of having to be stacked behind the tank for the effect just makes it that much worse.

Just because you can make this ability work in some circumstances doesn't mean it's not still bad, especially when compared to every other tank alternative. When I play AST I often snapshot the mitigation from CU on the tank for the busters. CU still sucked which is why it got balance changes and is a lot better now. There's no reason for PoA to not get the same treatment.

[AbremSev]

I agree with you. As a former Paladin main, after switching to Dark Knight, Paladin feels weak and squishy. Blackest Night makes its equivalent, Sheltron, seem like nothing. I absorb whole tankbusters with Blackest Night while on Sheltron the healer actually has to heal me.

Even GNB feels better with its partial combo heals and shields and Aurora, and WAR just heals itself with some very powerful heals, a lot of which are not on the GCD.

Paladin could be balanced better with a 100% block rate to make up for not having self-heals and shields in its combo. Sheltron's effect could be to increase how much is mitigated by the blocks, such as doubling it.

I think Paladins have less mitigation cooldowns because Bulwark was merged into Sheltron. Bulwark was the "extra" mitigation like Dark Mind, Camouflage or Thrill of Battle. Nothing replaced that.

Yeah. Really GNB is better than people give it credit for, most tanks aren't using camoflauge for periods of heavy autos. A GNB cycling HoS/Camoflauge/Rampart/Aurora is actually very solid at taking autos. I think a lot of GNB just forget to use Camo and Aurora because their DPS rotations are so busy during their frequent burst windows. It's sad but even an inefficient GNB not making good use of his defensives is still less squishy than a good PLD.

[Seraphor]

PLD has innate 20% Block rate (which works out at 4% base mitigation on average) that other tanks don't have.
However it's on demand mitigation Sheltron just raises this innate block rate to 100%, so whenever you use Sheltron you're essentially losing that innate block rate.

[AbremSev]

MT/OT hasn't been a thing for a long time now anyway. When 95% of tank busters have some sort of vuln that forces a tank swap and enmity is all but eliminated, there's only 'who's tanking at this moment and who isn't.'
Then plenty of the high end fights have both tanks simultaneously tanking (TEA: LL + liquid hand, BJ + CC, UCOB: Nael + Twin phase, Shiva: she autos both tanks during a certain form, Eden's Promise: her tank buster targets both tanks) or involve shared busters (TEA: Perfect Alexander's TB, UCOB: Ahk morn), further diluting MT/OT lines.

Also saying they're too weak is amusing, considering you can check a certain website that logs stuff to see the latest savage tier has about 2000 more PLD parses recorded than WAR or DRK...seems like they're a way more popular choice :^)

The job is popular for reasons that have nothing to do with how hard or easy they are to heal in the tiny portion of content that this actually matters. That's a healer problem instead of a tank one unless the content is literally unclearable for the job which it's not right now. Anyway my balance changes are about addressing that. TEA, UCOB, and Levi Unreal are the places where it becomes really obvious how squishy Paladin actually is right now and how much extra help they need to stay alive.

Additionally for your argument from popularity, the last savage raid tier didn't have any fights that did high sustained tank damage. To prove my point go minimum ilvl synch Ramuh e5s and have your PLD MT. You'll make your healers cry. Really the difference in healing requirement is noticeable on most fights if the PLD is MT compared to any other tank. That's why you never see PLD being MT if there's any other choice.

[Dzian]

My biggest peeve with pld is still the fact they trashed aegis boon. Especially now warrior basically has it with narcissistic flash...

Aegis was one of the most fun skills to use in its day. Producing some serious hp restoration when you used it correctly

[Bellsong]

The only answer is: spam clemency in your Resquiescat window to make up for lost clemencies, you'll be the strongest healer in the game for those 12 seconds!

[Commander_Justitia]

They should get rid of the now useless crossclass system, give tanks uniqueness back. What's the purpose of it if you get all skills anyway.. They just should be fun to play, doesn't matter if they have a 5-10% dmg spread to other tanks at optimal play. Otherwise they balance tanks into boredom, because of the babyrage of wannabe tryhard raiders who want to parse high with every tank.

And PLDs dying to leviathan lmao.. just use one clemency or yell at your healer and you survive, much wow, high iq gameplay.

[AbremSev]

They should get rid of the now useless crossclass system, give tanks uniqueness back. What's the purpose of it if you get all skills anyway.. They just should be fun to play, doesn't matter if they have a 5-10% dmg spread to other tanks at optimal play. Otherwise they balance tanks into boredom, because of the babyrage of wannabe tryhard raiders who want to parse high with every tank.

And PLDs dying to leviathan lmao.. just use one clemency or yell at your healer and you survive, much wow, high iq gameplay.

The extra healing requirements are annoying to deal with and easily fixable with a small balance change like I suggested.

[lezard21]

Otherwise they balance tanks into boredom, because of the babyrage of wannabe tryhard raiders who want to parse high with every tank.

SE doesn't pay attention to wannabe tryhard raiders though (see Ultimate being pushed into next year). It's more likely that the simplification and dumbing down of Tanks was because the cross class skill system was too complicated for casual players and they were not able to understand how and when to swap stances.

[Shougun]

In general I quite like clemency as it is unlike the other tank cures in a way that I think is pretty nifty- clemency can be spammed, timed, and targeted like no other. That said, if SE could find a way to occasionally allow you to weave it in during non-emergency situations in such a way that your healer wont be trying to hit you with their staff - that could be also... neat.. lol. Also if such a mechanic existed healers in general would rage less at it's existence. I follow the 'emergency only' rule, but you may get a particularly risky healer with a person dead your health at 20% theirs at 15% and they're still upset you decided to help . Yet then again, maybe they would have been upset no matter what /shrug.

Of course saying all that is like "I want to have and eat my cake too". Personally have suggested a mechanic that builds up an attack, because personally I'm enjoying the Crusader and big crunch spell ideas (I don't really want to see same skill spam, as much as possible- leave fel cleave to the warrior, but I adore Confiteor as an occasionally big wallop of beauty). Another more suggestion I've seen, more simple but therefore feasible is just simply allow clemency to occasionally buff your next magic attack, or something of that effect. So you could weave in one clemency in your requiescat without it being a dps loss.

Paladin isn't really designed to 'have' to use their clemency, like you'd be slapped if you're just sitting on Aurora all day because why are you just sitting on that? lol, and it just comes out as an extra tool for niche situations, to be honest Paladin seems to be one that comes with a number of extra tools for the sake of flavor. If my choice was between a few slightly weird scenario tools but they hit flavor and feel unique vs no extra tools but they all always have a situation of use. . . then I'd probably go for the first every time. It's a bit unfortunate sometimes to have to explain that some abilities are not meant to be used all the time, and it would be cool to be able to feel more free to use more of the kit, but.... if the office at SE is arguing whether to make clemency exactly like the others because people are complaining I'd rather they keep it unique.

They should get rid of the now useless crossclass system. . .

There were some moments in the past where it produced some neat feelings, with consequences of which are why it was watered down as it is now, but at this point I feel the cross class system offers nothing but a lack of individual identity (and perhaps budget friendly design, but that's a bonus for SE- not us lol). Minor differences in spells could add some extra flavor here and there, yet even in the situation where the spell effect is exactly the same in mechanics the icon and special effect being different would be better, currently it's all smashed together unfortunately (like shadowskin dying to rampart, or leeches to esuna). At the point that it helps players understand other jobs.. I feel like only consistent verbiage in the spells is necessary, if a player doesn't understand that a spell description that says "provokes the enemy" then they weren't going to get it in the title of the ability either.

I've had fun with such systems before both sRPG and MMORPG; however, at this point for FFXIV, I really don't think the system does the game any favors. Big fan for seeing it go. If it wasn't for all the lore issues making it annoying to do so, I'd also say may as well bounce all the classes too - so we can have even better job identity (classes are written into the game in many many locations, what a nightmare to smoothly retcon that).

This is how it already works though. You flash PoA and it applies immediately and for 5 seconds. All buffs that don't have timer on them last at least for 5 seconds. If you are channeling PoA you are using it wrong.

It's fine to do the snapshot thing (skilled if you time it right, embarrassing if you didn't :P), but I thought one way to encourage getting to enjoy the animation more is by attaching a dancer / summoner like ability swap when in use that allows the Paladin to pick between a few different interactions. Might have something like dealing potency to your target, or in an aoe, may add extra elements like slight mitigation boosting or area increasing, maybe tempered will applies to everyone inside the cone (when used, this actually was the original suggestion I had a long time ago before PoA, winged ability that allows Paladin to add mitigation and activates tempered will lol). At least personally a slight shame not to get to enjoy it's glory for much time. Special effect associated with such actions could be pretty cool too, light arcing off your wings and making baby terra flare (if thinking of AoE attacks), striking your shield with the sword hand to create holy shockwaves forward (perhaps with the energy forming from the wings and traveling down into the shield creating a starcraft yamato cannon like visual), etc.