DSR observation: PLD Sheltron does not block while stunned

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

Forgive me to pull up the discussion again, I think it is still somewhat relevant.

In my opinion, three things could / should be done without straight up axing Block as a mechanic.

1.) Passage of Arms needs a rework.
I'm aware this will earn me the most ire, but hear me out. Passage of Arms is a cool skill and I think having an additional group mitigation (in intention at least) would work - if you could continue attacking while it is deployed.

That's right, I'm suggesting to make it work like [Temperance], but with a smaller radius (10-12y around the PLD).

• * Crystalline wings are deployed (and maybe a somewhat visible circle to signify the range) on the Paladin
• + is no longer cancelled from doing other actions
• + self-mitigation effect unified to be -15% (optional with change 2b)
• - reduce duration to 6-10s at most, keeping Dark Missionary / Heart of Light more relevant as the long-term mitigation

On paper this would not change how much personal mitigation PLD has, but it would make Passage of Arms a lot more attractive to use.

2a) Block passive/Guaranteed Block adjustments.
For similar reasons why Guaranteed Critical Hits / Direct Hits have gotten the bonus damage from having excess Critical Hit / Direct Hit stats or raid buffs (something they seemingly forgot for cap speed weaponskills / spells like Heatblast)...

I believe it would be nice if your passive wouldn't deactivate when using Passage of Arms and (Holy) Sheltron and instead would merge into essentially a "Superblock". Say you get a block proc by the system while you had a guaranteed Block deployed, you'd get a superblock which would be... 30%? 35%? Definitely a significant amount of mitigation to make up for not having the heal / shield passive the other three tanks bring with their combos (Storm's Path + Souleater heal, Brutal Shell Heal/Shield). I'm unsure about Parry so I'd just leave it there.

Also please let us block critical hits again. Doing Ultima / Bahamut on Paladin and timing an already 4-seconds duration Sheltron perfectly only to be greeted by two(!!) critical hits in a row is a real gut punch without the Awareness effect.

2b.) Alternative: Change Guaranteed Block to standard mitigation
Boring change but I guess it would "work". It would also help alleviate Paladin's inability to block DOT damage, but I can't speak on how important this truly is especially in conjunction with Change #1 regarding PLD's mitigation budget.

[Kemeko]

A simple solution is to have Sheltron (Lv. 35) written with:

"Block incoming attacks while reducing damage taken by 20%."

This way, it gets an added missing personal mitigation without bloat, and block functions as usual with a fallback when it doesn't. Would also fix cooldown timings from lack of personal mitigation at lower tiers.

[Rithy255]

Forgive me to pull up the discussion again, I think it is still somewhat relevant.

(Quote cut down so I could reach size limit)

Passage of arms, I 99% agree with you currently I think it's just such a miserable janky ability, for the duration I actually wouldn't mind if it lasted longer then 10 seconds, I think because it's already on a Long CD of 120 instead of 90 (obviously PLD also has DV), that it's fine + It's missing a personal mitigation, So I actually think even making it around 12-15 seconds and increasing it's range a little more wouldn't be a Issue, PLD already lacks personal mitigation I think having a strong party wide makes it more appealing.

Your block changes are fine, I think current Holy shelltron is fairly fine, but the situations where it's not blocking properly such as Dots, stuns should be changed so PLD mitigates it normally.

Overall heres how I'd view changing PLD, in it's "defence"
Right now, when balancing tanks I believe we have to fairly be sure that the damage isn't far from each other but, I do believe just by balancing things it's going to fairly be impossible to balance tanks damages to the same values and have the same mitigation value, I think (Personally) PLD should be slightly behind GNB/DRK (With how current damage values are), not to say PLD should be far off at all.

Personally I think just placing PLD above the other tanks doesn't really solve everything, I rather PLD be slightly lower (we're talking in 1% of each other here), but also have a strong niche in good defensives and party support, instead of just making PLD this high DPS tank (Current PLD should be top dps). I think they generally need to do more then just "address" it's raid buff issues as PLD has a lot they should work on and give it a defined spot with the other tanks.

Keep in mind when balancing Jobs, (again) it's going to be impossible to have all tanks do the same damage/mitigation, but also have them be unique. I believe making sure DMG isn't too far off but also having it where certain jobs can excel in certain small areas is fine, as long as the balance isn't far off as damage is generally the most important thing about any job.