PLD vs WAR: testing

[Duelle]

- at the expense of another party member. The Solo trial makes a good point that you chose to overlook.

The fact that PLD can self-apply should not be overlooked simply because a warrior can delegate damage mitigation to someone else in the same fashion PLD can delegate damage dealing to someone else.

It's overlooked because off-healing as part of a tank's job is a very bad idea. Between sub-targetting sucking horribly on keyboard+mouse and lack of mouseover macros, you as the tank cannot afford the distraction of looking at health bars and tossing heals.

A Warrior Set up defers to 2 WHMs and relies upon the Warrior to make up the damage differential.

A Paladin setup defers to a second hybrid or damage class rather than a second WHM.

That second WHM should be non-negotiable. I just hope encounters can justify having more than one tank and more than one healer in a group as time goes by, otherwise there will be problems because of this attempt at distinction.

Not to mention, the second setence has situational written all over it, which we don't need. PLD and WAR, as well as WHM and whatever other healer they put into the game, have to be interchangable. Otherwise we give way for preferred jobs and leaving people out in the cold.

[Alerith]

It's overlooked because off-healing as part of a tank's job is a very bad idea. Between sub-targetting sucking horribly on keyboard+mouse and lack of mouseover macros, you as the tank cannot afford the distraction of looking at health bars and tossing heals.

I strongly disagree here. Off-healing not only takes a bit of the load off the WHM, but it's great for hate building as well. While not all fights allow you to do it properly, fights like Ifrit, where you have melee in proximity of your casting range, are easy to target with the Function keys, and Holy Succor will usually cure all they need while still giving you a decent push in enmity.

You view it as a cumbersome distraction, but I really don't feel it's like this at all. Sub-targeting isn't really an issue if you use function keys, and even if you don't, it isn't all that hard to tab through to your target depending on your positioning. Plus it isn't going to cost you much enmity at all, assuming you're curing someone who needs it where you would gain moderate enmity AND cure yourself for half that amount.

[Duelle]

I strongly disagree here. Off-healing not only takes a bit of the load off the WHM, but it's great for hate building as well. While not all fights allow you to do it properly, fights like Ifrit, where you have melee in proximity of your casting range, are easy to target with the Function keys, and Holy Succor will usually cure all they need while still giving you a decent push in enmity.

You view it as a cumbersome distraction, but I really don't feel it's like this at all. Sub-targeting isn't really an issue if you use function keys, and even if you don't, it isn't all that hard to tab through to your target depending on your positioning. Plus it isn't going to cost you much enmity at all, assuming you're curing someone who needs it where you would gain moderate enmity AND cure yourself for half that amount.

I view it as a distraction because you're supposed to focus on your own survival while tanking. It's a world of difference between being a DPS off-healing (which I've done as a Ret paladin in WoW and a melee RDM in FFXI) where you don't have to worry about what the boss might do in your face while you're tossing heals in between breaks of your damage rotation. It'd be another thing if it were like cures cast to recapture hate while a mob is trodding towards a party member (which I've also done in FFXI when tanking as a PLD), but off-healing as the tank's jobs is not going to be good news. All it does is create unnecessary stress on a job whose role is already stressful enough. It's like expecting a healer to also do close to top DPS.

[Alerith]

I view it as a distraction because you're supposed to focus on your own survival while tanking. It's a world of difference between being a DPS off-healing (which I've done as a Ret paladin in WoW and a melee RDM in FFXI) where you don't have to worry about what the boss might do in your face while you're tossing heals in between breaks of your damage rotation. It'd be another thing if it were like cures cast to recapture hate while a mob is trodding towards a party member (which I've also done in FFXI when tanking as a PLD), but off-healing as the tank's jobs is not going to be good news. All it does is create unnecessary stress on a job whose role is already stressful enough. It's like expecting a healer to also do close to top DPS.

I fail to see how it really adds stress. You, as the tank, shouldn't be relied on for cures, but it should be an augmenting force to your tanking skills and the survival of your party.

We know the movesets of just about everything we fight these days, and in all tanks should know their limits on taking damage. If I'm in critical health, I'm not going to be curing someone else because the next move Ifrit does could probably kill me. But if I'm sitting at high yellow or white HP, where there is no risk of any of his moves from his entire moveset killing me, then I'm free to throw out cures or buffs depending on the situation.

Honestly, it's literally no different from curing yourself, except for hitting a function key to target someone else. You wouldn't say being responsible for your own HP is too stressful, so how would adding one keystroke add so much stress that it would be undesirable for restoring an allies HP (in addition to your own, in addition to enmity)?

EDIT: You say that it's a distraction because you should be focusing on your own survival.

This is false. Tanking it about the survival of your entire group. It doesn't matter how well you stay alive on your own. If the rest of your team is dead for any given reason, then you've failed and you likely aren't going to finish the fight you're in.

[Duelle]

You, as the tank, shouldn't be relied on for cures, but it should be an augmenting force to your tanking skills and the survival of your party.

That's not the impression I'm getting, especially when I'm seeing people suggest that having a PLD in group allows the group to bypass inviting a second healer. That's largely where my concern comes from. If I'm on PLD, I'm there to tank, not to do part of the healer's job.

Honestly, it's literally no different from curing yourself, except for hitting a function key to target someone else. You wouldn't say being responsible for your own HP is too stressful, so how would adding one keystroke add so much stress that it would be undesirable for restoring an allies HP (in addition to your own, in addition to enmity)?

You'll probably tell me I suck and that I have no skill for this but whatever. I don't use F-keys. I used sub-targetting in FFXI while using a controller. In WoW I relied on mouse-over macros to do my off-healing/dispelling. So yes, as an individual it is quite troublesome and largely distracting.

Again, the difference is that in the two previous games I was also DPS, which meant that I didn't have to watch out for much aside from environmental hazards and the few abilities my paladin could actually help interrupt/avoid. I could easily dance around Sindragosa and toss instant-cast Flash of Lights on low health party members, or heal any stray raid members hit by Kologarn's eye-beams (while kiting said eye-beams, too). I've even saved healers with low health more times than I can count. I also keep in mind I was able to do that because the responsibility of tanking and all that came with it was not on me.

You say that it's a distraction because you should be focusing on your own survival.

This is false. Tanking it about the survival of your entire group. It doesn't matter how well you stay alive on your own. If the rest of your team is dead for any given reason, then you've failed and you likely aren't going to finish the fight you're in.

The tank is there to take hits and hold the mob's attention. If the tank dies, the group dies. If the tank's death is facilitated by things like expected off-healing (because the group decided to forego bringing a second healer, expecting the PLD to help pick up that slack), it's a pretty bad place to be in.

[Denmo]

Testing solo-ability between PLD and WAR is pointless.

What people really want to know is how well they compare in endgame 8-man content after the recent hotfix. Will players now pick PLD over a WAR when choosing a tank?

What I'm hearing on the forum is, "lolno".

[Judge_Xero]

I strongly disagree here. Off-healing not only takes a bit of the load off the WHM, but it's great for hate building as well. While not all fights allow you to do it properly, fights like Ifrit, where you have melee in proximity of your casting range, are easy to target with the Function keys, and Holy Succor will usually cure all they need while still giving you a decent push in enmity.

You view it as a cumbersome distraction, but I really don't feel it's like this at all. Sub-targeting isn't really an issue if you use function keys, and even if you don't, it isn't all that hard to tab through to your target depending on your positioning. Plus it isn't going to cost you much enmity at all, assuming you're curing someone who needs it where you would gain moderate enmity AND cure yourself for half that amount.

Just to add into this statement. Are people not aware that you can select a target from your party list? Why would you TAB or Funtion to someone, when you could just click on their name. (I realize that this isn't possible with a gamepad)

What you ask for : PLD being a better or equal tank than WAR.

What SE sees: Nerf warriors, leave PLD as is.

If you've been following the changes to War and Pld, you will notice that this isn't the case.
SE is actually doing a decent job on not Nerfing War. Losing a bit of damage for SC and gaining
a Parry buff, to stack with other moves, was a great way to balance War as a tank. Unfortunately you have to do more than SC combo now to get the full potential out of it. You'll have to press 5 buttons instead of 3. But you could also make a Macro for it I guess if 5 buttons is too much.


As far as the Thread Title goes. From testing on PLD before and after patch. The best setup is to just stack
as much Vit and Mnd as you can, up to Cap (300ish)
Get some good Acc Rings.
Cause PLD enmity generation is in it's combo's, not enmity gear. (not saying extra ENM+ gear is useless, it just doesn't give you the best bang for the buck on PLD)
Rampart
Fast Blade -->Flat Blade (10 second combo)
Outmaneuver
Sentinel
War Drum
Divine Veil (cause you may need heals by this point anyways)
You get that off at the start of a battle, and just go through your rotation of buffs and
FB combo
Takes a few seconds longer to build hate compared to SC combo. But it's way
tougher to break.

[Enfarious]

Just to add into this statement. Are people not aware that you can select a target from your party list? Why would you TAB or Funtion to someone, when you could just click on their name. (I realize that this isn't possible with a gamepad)
...

To expand this a little more, with a gamepad you can use the d-pad up/down to scroll nothing but party members. No member is more than 4 presses away so it still really isn't hard to target party members.

Imo the hardest part of off healing on PLD is WHMs that spam cures so fast my Succors are only landing for ~200 so the healing enmity is nerfed, the HP returned to myself is nerfed and it's a huge waste of MP.

[Soukyuu]

Imo the hardest part of off healing on PLD is WHMs that spam cures so fast my Succors are only landing for ~200 so the healing enmity is nerfed, the HP returned to myself is nerfed and it's a huge waste of MP.

AFAIK, you still get the full enmity from overhealing. I rarely do, but there were some cases where I pulled hate even though I wasn't healing for the full cura amount.

[Hyrist]

It's overlooked because off-healing as part of a tank's job is a very bad idea. Between sub-targetting sucking horribly on keyboard+mouse and lack of mouseover macros, you as the tank cannot afford the distraction of looking at health bars and tossing heals.

That second WHM should be non-negotiable. I just hope encounters can justify having more than one tank and more than one healer in a group as time goes by, otherwise there will be problems because of this attempt at distinction.

Not to mention, the second setence has situational written all over it, which we don't need. PLD and WAR, as well as WHM and whatever other healer they put into the game, have to be interchangable. Otherwise we give way for preferred jobs and leaving people out in the cold.

Dulle, you should know as well as I do that White Mage is quintessential healer for a FF game. Any other job with healing capacities will likely see it function similar to the way Bard's healing functions, at least until they figure out a way to make Dancer's functions work within the armory system.

Warrior has function as a DD as well as a tank, so it's place is secure regardless of the PLD. It's the second WHM who's effectively taking the Paladin's place in this regard, while people wrongly see it as a competition between Warrior and Paladin.

7 Classes, 8 Slots, and people are bringing 4 of them on average - there is a lot more wrong than simply how much damage your tank is doing.

Currently, there are two primary divisions in tanking, and two methods used in tanking.

We have the delay targets and the kill targets. Idealy, Paladin would always be tanking the delay targets in split targeting situations. Depending on the intensity of the distributed damage, either the White Mage or the Bard would focus healing accommodation on the Paladin. (Likely the Bard, if the Paladin can sufficiently reduce incoming damage.) The remaining damage weight is held on the other side of the spectrum, where the Warrior tanks for the killing party.

[Note: As we have 8 slots, 2 WHMs is more than possible without stepping on toes currently. However that 8th slot should be flexible. This whole "We NEED 2 WHMs and 2 BLMS EVERY RUN!" needs to be discouraged by the very mechanics of the game.]

In single tanking situations, the Warrior can have at it as a DD and compete keenly as second slot on the hate list to keep the other classes even more secure.

To really secure this ideal all they need to do is secure PLD more of what they already have. Make their damage increase abilities easier to use (Riot Blade needs to work from the front.) Give them easier use of casting so they can actually make use of some of the abilities they have. (More MP regeneration, lower interrupt rate. Flat damage reduction to assist them in kiting and lower HP.)

Right now, the strategy is functional but could use some work. Honestly I hope battle regiments come with a build in mechanic that resists class stacking and encourage job diversity in parties. However that's still a long way off, IMO.