The Problem(s) with Paladin

[SwordCoheir]

I think I like the idea of an AoE damage mitigation aura that lets melee party members enjoy the fray more.

I think an Obsess-like ability for all damage could be nice. Paladin places "Obsess" on one enemy, with a sustained damage reduction of all types from that target. Drawbacks may include reduced block rate against all other targets, reduced enmity against other targets, gradual TP consumption to maintain, or the old penalty of taking more damage from all other targets.

Would be nice to have Obsess again like the Enmity Bonus on Phalanx. Frankly I don't see why they thought it was a good idea to remove/reduce some of our Enmity generating abilities before they revamped the combo system, we were already having a hard enough time with Enmity as it was.

On another note however (and I've brought this up before) what is going to happen to PLD's ability to maintain hate when the level cap rises. JA's will still be generating the same amount of hate they were when we got them, and if you've been studying the trends with weapons there is a huge and continually growing gap between the base damage of Swords and even the second weakest weapon type (H2H). Our damage is already pathetic due to the low base damage of Swords and we already lack any offensive boosts to contend with DD jobs even if we did have a comparable base damage weapon, so when that cap rises and that base damage gap grows even more, how does SE expect PLD to even contend with Enmity generation.

So my thought's is, WHY NOT give Swords a overall creditable boost in base damage. Would it really kill PLD/GLA to hit Ifrit for 20ish damage vs. 9-10 with auto-attacks? I'll lay out some key points.

1. Increased base damage with Flatblade's current combo modifiers would mean an actual significant boost in hate.
2. With the current mid to high recast timers and TP cost on most of GLA/PLD's better TP moves and no offensive AoE capability PLD would still be prevented from fully influencing damage.
3. Lack of any or access to any offensive JA boosts to PLD prevent any actual competition between DD jobs in damage.
4. On the flip side, GLA's access to cross class abilities like Blood for Blood, Blindside, and Invigorate might allow GLA to participate as a competent DD and breathe some life into at least one class that has been effectively replaced by a job.

Seriously, if MNK's can have the 2nd lowest base damage weapon and come out on top of the ladder due to their multi-hit auto-attacks and ability to WS spam with low to high recast timers and TP costs, why not let PLD at least let our unboosted, single attack per round, mid to high recast/tp cost moves hit just hard enough we can function adequately at our job.

I'm not saying this for the sake of turning PLD/GLA into some kind of DD, it's literally how they're designing GLA/PLD's mechanics to work. If PLD/GLA is going to function at all in the future they need to at least let the job perform at a competent level they're designing the jobs mechanics around.

Just give it a go, all I ask is one patch boost the overall base damage of Swords to a comparable level of other DD weapons, let it run it's course and read the feedback of how drastically good or bad it affects PLD/GLA and if it turns out to be a good balance stick with it, if you feel it needs to be tweaked down a little by all means do what you have to to balance it out. Just don't keep expecting PLD/GLA to function properly when your throwing mechanic/vision disabilities at it from every angle.

Below are some recommended adjustments to the base power of some of the endgame Swords to give a decent idea what I'm aiming for testing. I consider them to be fair adjustments based on the weapons speed, damage dealt from other classes with similar weapons, and consideration of lack of combat boosting abilities.

Ifrit's Blade - 141 Base Damage
Morbid Mogblade- 135
Garuda's Gaze- 126
Mailbreaker- 139
Cobalt Winglet- 129

Man did not expect this to turn into a wall of text. XD

Just don't keep expecting PLD/GLA to function properly when your throwing mechanic/vision disabilities at it from every angle.

Just to clarify a little what I mean by this, in case I come off as a little confusing. When you design a job you usually implement capacitors to balance it among the other classes. One aspect is like BLM where it's very high damage and low Defense and HP, other jobs like MNK hit fast, have high DPS, and decent evasion but low HP, MP, and defense.

Now in terms of balance PLD should be high hate, high defense/mitigation, medium heals, mid-high HP, and low damage and MP, however the way game mechanics are leaves designing PLD with severely open flaws.

1. Hate generating Job Abilities don't scale as you level meaning the higher your Damage Dealer jobs get, the more damage they put out, meaning Enmity generating Job Abilities become far less effective at higher levels.
2. Combo Modifiers for hate are directly affected by damage, so weak damage yields weak returns even with a high modifier.
3. Difference Level (D-Lv) disperportionately affects defense to the point having several hundred more defense over other players is almost insignificant the larger the difference in level is.
4. And coming full circle from point three, sense defense is much less significant the bigger the level difference is HP becomes a more valuable commodity when dealing with monsters with extremely damaging moves.
5. And for final thoughts, stat allotment for PLD is rather all over the place compared to other jobs. MND possibly works due to it's ability to somewhat heal, however VIT for HP and damage reduction and DEX for Blocking would have fit PLD's role as a defense/mitigation tank like it was intended to be, but the job is being forced to balance between four stats instead of two or three.

That's just a few of the issues I'm talking about, basically the systems built to work against PLD/GLA and rather than pushing for a major time-consuming overhaul of the system/job, why not go the easier route and boost the job to work with the current mechanics to make up some of it's depravity and take out a future problem that will eventually come to haunt the job unless fixed sooner or later.