Would removing clemency allow for a better pld?

[DanielNegreanu_Adamantoise]

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?

[MistakeNot]

I think you are speaking nonsense.
If I use clemency, it is because I think it is needed. I don't feel bad about using it - there is no reason to feel bad about it.
And there is nothing counter-intuitive about it.
How would just removing clemency make paladin better? Answer is that it wouldn't.

[SoulSamurai]

I feel the issue in it is the lack of actual support in the entire lore and skill set of the class. Shield bash? Niche skill. Cover? Niche skill. Then Clemency a good skill that as mentioned breaks combos, uses MP (was issue pre EW), and lowers DPS dramatically. IMO they should make it OGCD 2,000 MP cost and a 10-15 second cooldown. Too much useage will kill your Req phase and keeps it balanced. This way it can act as a mitigation skill instead of a solo the last little bit of a dungeon boss when the group wipes. Or to the absolute minimum not break combos. Its already a DPS loss to use it why make it destroy a combo aswell.

[DanielNegreanu_Adamantoise]

I feel the issue in it is the lack of actual support in the entire lore and skill set of the class. Shield bash? Niche skill. Cover? Niche skill. Then Clemency a good skill that as mentioned breaks combos, uses MP (was issue pre EW), and lowers DPS dramatically. IMO they should make it OGCD 2,000 MP cost and a 10-15 second cooldown. Too much useage will kill your Req phase and keeps it balanced. This way it can act as a mitigation skill instead of a solo the last little bit of a dungeon boss when the group wipes. Or to the absolute minimum not break combos. Its already a DPS loss to use it why make it destroy a combo aswell.

Dude that even on a 60cd would be an improvement

[HisShadowX]

I love it as a solo option. For those who don't know the Hardcore Minority supported a system called Cross Class System so basically your Warrior could get Cure by cross class and was expected to level another class to get special abilities. THANKFULLY Square removed this because this sort of halted people joining since the only people who liked it are the Hardcore Minority and remember they destroyed and remade this game because Tanka made the original FFXIV for the Hardcore Minority and the sales were horrible. Never focus on a small minority who do not matter


When I first gained the ability you have to understand even though I joined the game in 2013 on the PS3 I did not get my first max level until early 2020. So a lot of Paladin abilities did not update until I got to that part in the story and done class quests. So when I got clem I LOVED IT! However, when I came back to Endwalker I noticed Healers really stopped healing and demanded you use Clem well they DPS'd.

The Paladin is in a real bad spot right now

[Aurora_Sylphy]

Nope. I'll murder you if you touch my Clemency . Jokes aside, Clemency is one the things I love about Paladin. I barely have to use it, but the amount of runs its saved where its just me and a DPS soloing the boss cause the other Healer and DPS croaked, and the remaining one does not have a raise. Clemency is like my 'break here in case of fire' button. I should never have to need to use, and if I do, something has gone terribly wrong and bad, but I would rather have it just in case I needed to use it. In addition, you are playing a tank. You DPS to help the party, and you try and maximize that DPS in-between doing your role (using your cooldowns, not stepping in red, etc).

The difference between Warrior and Paladin is that the Warrior has to think more about their skill. It lasts 8 seconds, and is on a 25s cooldown. Now 4 GDCS of pure damage to proc the healing is 1600 pot healing, sure. Let's take their 1-2-3-1 combo in that time. That is (200+280+400+200, plus a heal of 250 pot, for a total damage of 1100, and a heal of 1850 pot on the warrior, and 1600 on the target affected by it. And while the heal may be much larger, for a tank 90% a lot of that potency would be wasted overhealing.

Now to match that heal a little bit, let's look at a Paladin using Clemency and their 1-2-3 combo. Heals them for 500 pot, their target for 1000 pot, and damage done of (200, 300, 420) if we are using 1-2-3 combo, or if we have a stack of sword oath up due to completing the combo, at 1, 2 or 3 stacks those GDCs will be replaced with their sword oath use (so 1 stack: 420, 200, 300, total 900 pot dmg, 1000MP back; 2 stacks: 420, 420, 200, 1040 pot dmg, 1000 MP; 3 stacks: 420, 420, 420, 1260 total pot dmg, 1500 MP).

To sum up, using Clemency on a DPS for an on demand 1000 pot heal, 500 pot self heal, and dealing anywhere from 900 pot dmg to 1260 pot damage, and getting back 500-1500MP, not including passive regen. Warrior on the other hand heals themselves for 1850 pot, their target for 1600, and deals damage of 1100 pot. We are not counting other abilities but only things that are on the GDC and do not have cooldowns.

Warrior always deals more damage then the worst case for a Paladin, and heals more. However, they are stuck in a loop of needed to wait 17 secs (not counting the 8 secs of healing while the buff is up). That means they cannot use it on demand, and need to wait a further 7 GDCs on average between skills to be able to use it again (in half that time a Paladin would have more then enough made back the MP they spent on Clemency). So I think it's a fair compromise really, and everything in the game is balanced for all classes so the raw damage number is kind of pointless (as in max damage on one class being higher then the other, and not playing miserably and outputting well bellow the damage your class is supposed to do)

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

I don't even think Clemency is what is "taxing" Paladin this time around anyways. I'd rather see Cover be less of a totally niche skill and at least return a portion of its mitigation to justify the 50 gauge cost vs Holy Sheltron + Provoke / Intervention. Or have some of the healing effects introduced at Lv82+ be moved down a bit so it isn't so top-heavy in that regard.

Also please put a built-in Awareness (can't be hit by critical hits) effect into Sheltron so Paladin doesn't feel like utter pain when doing old content with random (all pre-80 content) or forced criticals (Dun Scaith: Diabolos Hollow, O3S: Critical Hit buster, Shinryu EX: Tera Slash). Having your Sheltron be completely deleted because you can't block a critical hit is just dumb since Awareness got removed.

I think since Paladin seems to be within about 5% of DRK's dps numbers, I consider it fine. If anything, I want DRK to be reworked and be tuned down.

[Faafetai]

Also please put a built-in Awareness (can't be hit by critical hits) effect into Sheltron so Paladin doesn't feel like utter pain when doing old content with random (all pre-80 content) or forced criticals (Dun Scaith: Diabolos Hollow, O3S: Critical Hit buster, Shinryu EX: Tera Slash). Having your Sheltron be completely deleted because you can't block a critical hit is just dumb since Awareness got removed.

I am not going crazy! I knew it wasn't blocking crits!!! I have been wondering about this for a while because it has been bothering me. It also randomly started blocking magic now? I do not remember it blocking ice sprites in vigil but sure enough it does now, I don't think it was a year ago when I first started going through as paladin.

Also unsure if it would be over powered but cover hollowed ground will sometimes not go through to me but sometimes the covered targets damage depending on source of damage will go through to me, is that also going through? Is it because certain things are critting or is this normal. Unsure if it should be completely negated if you use hollowed, I don't know how the damage is calculated or how it interacts with each other perfectly at this moment. More testing must be done.

[aodhan_ofinnegain]

I am not going crazy! I knew it wasn't blocking crits!!! I have been wondering about this for a while because it has been bothering me. It also randomly started blocking magic now? I do not remember it blocking ice sprites in vigil but sure enough it does now, I don't think it was a year ago when I first started going through as paladin.

Also unsure if it would be over powered but cover hollowed ground will sometimes not go through to me but sometimes the covered targets damage depending on source of damage will go through to me, is that also going through? Is it because certain things are critting or is this normal. Unsure if it should be completely negated if you use hollowed, I don't know how the damage is calculated or how it interacts with each other perfectly at this moment. More testing must be done.

Yea, so damage rolls as Crit > Block > Parry > Dodge, so game will check through all of these before landing a normal hit, Block only applies to PLD, and Parry will only apply to Physical Damage. You are 5 years late, as Blocking has been possible on Magic Damage since Stormblood.

Cover and Hallowed Ground have never interacted together, even though some people claim that it worked all the way back in ARR, but it has been proven it does not interact even back then. Any damage transferred by Cover from target will ignore Hallowed Ground but all other mitigation including likes of Rampart, Sentinel, Sheltron / Holy Sheltron, or any other Damage Reduction given by other party members and HP shields will apply to the damage transferred from Cover.

[DanielNegreanu_Adamantoise]

Well what I like more about nascent is I don’t have to do calculus about when I heal. There’s just no downside to it, someone lower on health? Nascent, not a big deal, they full health.
Also it’s 400 potency per enemy hit, and it can crit, so if you hit 10 enemies with 1 gcd it’s a 4000 potency heal, do it in your crit window, and well it doesn’t matter invincibility is invincibility.
Also after using shake it off in a few raids, it’s comedy how much better it is than Devine veil.

Ultimately though, you need to do math in order to figure out if you should use clemency.
Nascent, there’s literally no reason not to use it.
I don’t want to be complaining about warrior it’s just, kinda makes you question why pld was ever taxed for clemency.
Seems like the entire job identity is caught up on something that you’re discouraged from doing