Would removing clemency allow for a better pld?

[DanielNegreanu_Adamantoise]

clemency isnt a tax because paladins almost never use clemency. It's just a flavor ability that happens to be useful in prog and casual content.

Not until endwalker could anyone even consider this true.
The damage has been in the back for the longest time, no self-healing until endwalker.
Even when I say no self-healing til EW you get half the plds saying “you joking right?”
It’s not hard to see the theory behind the job.
No self heal combo, no self-healing whatsoever for ARR HS SB ShB, unless you look at clemency as part of its mit toolkit.

Only in EW could you possibly consider it “flavor”. It’s an artifact of and old deprecated idea like Shield Bash/cover/poa.
Not only that but the damage is behind on purpose. Pld and war aren’t 4-5 points behind gnb and blk on accident. Pld didn’t become as tanky as gnb until EW.

So this whole time pld has been kept at the back not on accident, with no self-healing, but because on the support tank theory.
The job is absolutely taxed for clemency and they don’t treat it as flavor.
It’s been painfully obvious before EW, but even now still is.
As tanky as a gnb, with the dps of a war, for an ability that you ideally never use.

[DanielNegreanu_Adamantoise]

Clemency has been around a long time. Players generally were more agreeable to the idea of sacrificing damage for utility in 2015 than they are now.

And I'm absolutely one of those. Being 4 - 5 points behind other tanks doesn't bother me. Also not being the toughest tank doesn't bother me.
In my opinion, PLD damage and tankiness is perfectly fine in EW.
My issue with it, in EW, isn't the damage or the tankiness. Its the failure for SE to deliver on that "utility" part. (When I play well, when the group plays well)

I'm not using oath on Cover/Intervention because my most important job role is to be a sturdy, competently mitigating tank.
I'm not using Clemency cause my second-most important job role is to do damage.

Whats left is Passage of Arms and Devine Veil.

Devine Veil designed on an old, deprecated theory that on the paladin will follow it up with Clemency. (Haha, nope)

Passage of Arms is clunky to use thanks to its reverse directional cone, cancels on movement and only the group buff lasts for 5 seconds after cancelling not the blocking part. Another neglected relic

You realize that these are the things you're paying 4 - 5 points of damage behind gunbreaker are eh? When you and your group plays well, you are rewarded with: Passage of Arms, and Devine I-sure-hope-the-healer-procs-it-Veil

It makes sense thematically for PLD to have a cast heal spell that they can use on demand

And this is why I think it might be better to remove it instead of trying to work on it. If its a GCD, you will still ideally never use it, and as we've seen from pre-EW, SE design the job around it being used. Its just a really bad tank before endwalker, at the bottom of tankiness and dps at the same time.
But hey, if the healer dies...

Cover's main issue historically has been is that it has been uniquely powerful in breaking mechanics on certain fights. It's also iconic, so they can't just get rid of it. I think the easier solution is to change the effect to match with earlier games in the series, such that you take damage on behalf of said teammate only if the attack would otherwise kill them. Then upgrade it into Intervention and merge in the effect.

See I would rather not try to save old ideas if the ideas are fundamentally flawed like cover/bash/clem. All of them are fundamentally flawed.
It would be more freeing to simply remove flawed ideas, to look at the job with a cleaner slate and then ask "what does it need, in order for it to become the support tank that it deserves to be?".

Cause right now I honestly think warrior is the far superior support tank with shake it off and nascent flash.
Not stopping what you are doing to support the group; thats what a support tank is. Thats what warrior does better.

Yeah so I'm not saying that just removing clemency would make the job better, I'm saying the job needs its dead wood burned away so that the job can grow in ways it needs to.

[NeoDivinity]

I'm not using oath on Cover/Intervention because my most important job role is to be a sturdy, competently mitigating tank.
I'm not using Clemency cause my second-most important job role is to do damage.

Whats left is Passage of Arms and Devine Veil.

Devine Veil designed on an old, deprecated theory that on the paladin will follow it up with Clemency. (Haha, nope)

I really fail to see how are you still needing to wait for healer to proc your Veil in EW when 90% every time you need, it will auto proc within your HS window specially in this 1s tier. That's a solved problem, only downside is that i doenst shield the PLD itself.

If you play as OT your Intervention will be up most of the time on the MT, thats how you use it in most situations.

Passage of Arms is clunky to use thanks to its reverse directional cone, cancels on movement and only the group buff lasts for 5 seconds after cancelling not the blocking part. Another neglected relic

That's subjective since there are diff gameplay camera setting Legacy/Stadard and also Controllers that use Legacy by default, so depending on the platform and setting it may be clunky or not. Personally on legacy i don't see much problem even when um MTing.

Still the only tank with an extra group mitigation, if think thats not strong...

You realize that these are the things you're paying 4 - 5 points of damage behind gunbreaker are eh?

gunbreaker, yeah, go for it because this one is not clunky at all. Also 4-5 its the differente on the Max points on the CHARTS compared to Drk.
Even between other tanks you'll rarely have this discrepancy ingame.

Opening rotation for the others are super strong for sure but by the end of the encouter the difference is little. Stop looking at the charts everytime you underperform looking for things to blame please

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After reading some other comments i see a pattern where you blame all the niche defensives abilities on the job and the arguments you bring makes me think that in your perspective his damage is low just compensate for them existing wich is not true.
Even if they remove said abilities this does not mean they'll be replace by offensive ones nor add damage to the job because of it.

On this scenario they would merge them with other defensives at best. DPS is the meta yes, still the number of reports of DRK(highest tank DPS) and PLD still are almost the same in past weeks.

[Lyth]

I'm not sure why someone would refuse to use gauge on Intervention.

I personally feel that actions should be designed to be versatile rather than niche. A simple change is all that is needed to do this for Clemency. All that you need is a proc that can occur a maximum of once per 60-120 seconds that makes your next cast of Clemency free and instant. Under normal circumstances, this is just your standard Equilibrium/Aurora equivalent that you can weave in as an oGCD. If you need more healing output than that in a pinch, you still have the option of hard casting it to keep yourself and your team alive. We haven't taken anything away, we've just made it more versatile. There may need to be some balance adjustments in terms of MP cost and so on to offset this, but the concept is what needs to be looked at.

Cover is a fairly iconic PLD action, dating back to FF4. I think that its historical interactions with things like Earthshaker and transferring debuffs were unintentional. Part of the problem currently is that it occupies a similar function to Intervention while having a gauge cost attached. It probably makes more sense for Cover to upgrade into Intervention and bring along that flavor effect rather than trying to compete with it for resources. What you could do is introduce Cover at Lv. 45 as an ability that only transfers damage across that would otherwise kill your target, and then upgrade the effect at Lv. 62 to Intervention. That way it retains the flavor and allows you to clutch rescue a teammate, but doesn't force you to take that extra damage unless its absolutely life threatening.

I'm actually not sure why they feel compelled to keep in both Passage and Veil in the first place. They probably could get rid of the heal requirement on Veil. Passage doesn't really need to be changed. I think if you give players a chance to practice and learn how to target cones, they will. Not everything needs to be converted to a circle.

[HisShadowX]

Clemency, the reason for taxing pld.
Looked great when I started the job, but now I know how counter intuitive it is, it feels bad to use.

When you use clemency, you are sacrificing damage.
It breaks combos, some healers resent you for using it, some might expect you to use it, but either way it feels terrible to use.

It’s a completely different feeling than verraising or swiftcast raising a dead healer as a dps, that is satisfying. Clemency just always feels bad, even when the healer dies and you use it to keep yourself and the dps alive, you’re thinking to yourself, “I could be nascent flashing the dps without sacrifice”

Like, there are several pld “utility” abilities that seems completely unnecessary and counter-intuitive.

I’m just left thinking now, why not fundamentally rethink pld and clemency?

It’s not that I don’t enjoy pld. I actually am ok with it’s damage and like the rotation, it just irks me to think that pld is being held back by an ability that most every pld comes to learn to not use, or to hate using.

If clemency were simply removed, people could stop the whole “clemency tax” nonsense, and just make a much better pld job, eh?

So I just ran Doma with me and another red mage and a dark knight and a Sage (Of course). The Sage just straight up went and DPS'd and refused to heal. After we wiped the second time keep in mind the Tank would be the first to die since the Sage wasn't doing anything be DPSing asked us why we weren't healing.

With 6.1 we are getting better healing for Healers the problem is they opened the flood gates for the DPS Healers who dont like to heal.

If anything you need to take away all the DPS options for healers in dungeons to get them to stop and I don't know heal lol

[Greyhawk]

Clemency - Execution no longer interrupts action combos.

That is from 6.1 Patch Notes, so you can no longer use this as one of your reasons for wanting to get rid of it.

If you don't like it, simple - you don't use it. Don't penalize us that do use it when we have healers who all but refuse to heal or have died from a mechanic and the PLD is still fighting a boss with some DPS with them.