5 PLD suggestions that I think would be great

[Jeff_Batis]

I - Divine veil should apply damage mitigation also for PLD and should not require a cure spell to activate on the party members.

II - The damage that you receive when using cover should consider your own mitigation, this way we would combine cover with HG, I think this would be a so cool clutch skill

III - Passage of Arms should be a circle where everyone inside receive a damage reduction, I also think the animation should be like a healer bubble where pld craves his sword on the ground and creates the barrier, it could stay as a stationary skill but with higher damage reduction since you are abdicating of doing damage

IV - Shieldbash as an ability, one with short cooldown and weak potency or longer cooldown with higher potency

V - The magic phase during the rotation should be different, Holy spirit been a weaponskill and the blades been and ability that it's only available when you cast Holy spirit, this ways we would be at least changing button during this phase instead of spamming 1 button, pretty much like GNB continuation works, also this fixes the problem with holy spirit been a spell.

Now the boring part, I've playing the game for a year manly as tank, and after start doing savage content I notice that pld requires a lot more of playerskill and battle knowledge to play optimally that other tanks, I'm not even entering in the damage discrepancy between these jobs, but I think PLD gameplay feels outdated, I hope SE makes some changes in the near future for my first class and the one that I most like considering fantasy roleplay aspect

[Undeadfire]

I - Divine veil should apply damage mitigation also for PLD and should not require a cure spell to activate on the party members.

This would effectively push the boundaries with balancing between the others.

II - The damage that you receive when using cover should consider your own mitigation, this way we would combine cover with HG, I think this would be a so cool clutch skill

HG Covering would be broken af, easy mechanic skip.

III - Passage of Arms should be a circle where everyone inside receive a damage reduction, I also think the animation should be like a healer bubble where pld craves his sword on the ground and creates the barrier, it could stay as a stationary skill but with higher damage reduction since you are abdicating of doing damage

I like the Circle part but more miti? No.

V - The magic phase during the rotation should be different, Holy spirit been a weaponskill and the blades been and ability that it's only available when you cast Holy spirit, this ways we would be at least changing button during this phase instead of spamming 1 button, pretty much like GNB continuation works, also this fixes the problem with holy spirit been a spell.

There's nothing remotely OP attacking from range as a Paladin, you still want to auto attack, and better yet put attack potencies into gauge costs. There are hardly fights for a Paladin to sit back at range, groups will devise uptime strategies.

Now the boring part, I've playing the game for a year manly as tank, and after start doing savage content I notice that pld requires a lot more of playerskill and battle knowledge to play optimally that other tanks, I'm not even entering in the damage discrepancy between these jobs, but I think PLD gameplay feels outdated, I hope SE makes some changes in the near future for my first class and the one that I most like considering fantasy roleplay aspect

It lacks a proper burst than mid potency attacks all over the place, and too easily disrupted from uptime losses, Fof being a nuisance than being good with it's current tool kit and it's actual Blades being too late in the burst. Palaidns best rotation is camping with FoF till around 16s are burned before engaging, just to get it's "best" attacks optimally.

[Blatrix_FB]

I agree with 1 and 4 more or less.
1: PLD is seen as the selfless knight, who protects others by standing in front of them. Therefore he doesn't get the shield, only the others. Playwise, it would be nice to just pop it and everyone including the PLD would get the shield. But then again, the healing via holy spirit triggers it as well if I recall it correctly and with PLD being a tank who get's less damage anyways, it's not as needed on himself then on others (healers and DPS). If I had to choose, I would remove the healing requirement rather than putting the shield on the PLD as well. Would be a bit more casualfriendly.

2: we had that in Stormsblood actually. My Co-Tank used Cover + HG on our WHM in O4S to soak the Aero TB. We will probably never go back to that because it's overpowered. cover had 20% damage reduction as well and I think it wasn't bound to the gauge then. Personally, I would at least give cover some love by giving it a damage reduction. Like blocking the attacks 100% or so.

3: Circle Mitigation? No. Reason: it wouldn't make any sense. The whole thing is meant to be a cone because the PLD is getting hit frontal and blocking it with it's shield, creating a savezone behind him. Also: the skill is in my opinion mostly only useful in Boss encounters like (ex) Trials or Raids, where people usually stack up so that healers can heal up quickly. Standing in front of the party and use passage isn't a problem. The cone is also wide enough so that it shouldn't be a problem to get everyone in. The damage reduction itself should be fine (15% less damage), because similar to divine veil: you can use it between 2 GCDs, while everyone else get the buff for around 5 seconds which is more than enough to mitiage raidwide damage (except they changed it again and I don't know it, because I haven't used it in Endwalker yet). The only part missing then is the 100% blockrate for the PLD himself

4: it would make shieldbash see some usage again since PLD has lowblow as stun. I would prefer a 30 sec duration, so that it lines up with circle of scorn and expiration (or whatever the upgraded Spirits within is called again). Then again, we would have more oGCD to weave then.

5: if I understand it correctly, you want to make the Blade combo to an PLD Continuation? the oGCD spamming ability of GNB? I mean it's fun to use when playing casually GNB but... I wouldn't say it's a good thing for PLD. With Shieldbash, PLD should have 3 oGCDs landing in the Requiescat window, which should already ease a bit of the 1 button spamming. But I do see your point, that the holy spirit spamming can be a bit boring. About the weaponskill change... I would rather grab an idea from another thread: making Skillspeed and spellspeed into 1 stat, because that issue also applies to other Jobs (looking at you Dark Knight) as well

[Absurdity]

I agree with 1 and 4 more or less.
1: PLD is seen as the selfless knight, who protects others by standing in front of them. Therefore he doesn't get the shield, only the others. Playwise, it would be nice to just pop it and everyone including the PLD would get the shield. But then again, the healing via holy spirit triggers it as well if I recall it correctly and with PLD being a tank who get's less damage anyways, it's not as needed on himself then on others (healers and DPS). If I had to choose, I would remove the healing requirement rather than putting the shield on the PLD as well. Would be a bit more casualfriendly.

2: we had that in Stormsblood actually. My Co-Tank used Cover + HG on our WHM in O4S to soak the Aero TB. We will probably never go back to that because it's overpowered. cover had 20% damage reduction as well and I think it wasn't bound to the gauge then. Personally, I would at least give cover some love by giving it a damage reduction. Like blocking the attacks 100% or so.

1. It doesn't take less damage than the other tanks, in most situations you probably take more (except for maybe Dark Knight) because rng block is unreliable, you don't have any selfheal on your normal 1-2-3 combo, you're lacking 1 proper personal mitigation cooldown compared to all other tanks, can't stack Shelltron with Passage of Arms, Passage itself being useless as personal mitigation in general and the selfheal of your magic combo is entirely concentrated in your "burst window" every 60 seconds, resulting in a whole lot of overheal and not much else.

2. Combining Cover and Hallowed Ground hasn't worked since ARR exactly because it was overpowered.

[Mithron]

I'd like to see Clemency become an OGCD that costs 50 gauge so it's actually usable.