Why is everyone anxious about a PLD Rework?

[Rithy255]

PLD has enough self-healing and self sustain on max Level with his whole magic rotation healing him plus a HoT on holy shiltron and intervention.
He doesn't need more free direct healing.
The clemency option is good as it is now.

With intervention he even has the strongest skill to help the MT. A other tank can take a shared buster alone, when he gets a buffed intervention.

I don't really understand why some player think that PLD need more/ different defensive tools. I think his current mitigation kit is the best and most versatile of all tanks.

Alright let me argue this from a different perspective, because I actually really like clemency and agree that it's fine, it being a niche GCD option makes it good for solo duties or some progression situations, I can remember actually using clemency in hard content and casual content. That being said clemency shouldn't be taxed (like you wouldn't/Shouldn't tax vercure on RDM).

I do not agree with the statement that PLD's tanky enough a major issue with PLD's sustain is that the Paladin cannot choose when they wanna use their biggest burst sustain, as most of its tied to damage rotations, which isn't great for the job, I rather PLD get a OCD burst heal and reduce their magic rotational healing.

Intervention point is "ok", the issue is when it comes down to it Warrior for example has a effect that will heal both targets, Tanks such as gunbreaker and Dark knight have a lot more smaller mitigations such as Oblation or aurora along with another personal CD, so they can also help with double tank busters, it isn't really "paladin exclusive ability" to be useful on double tank busters when a dark knight could use dark mind and oblation on self then give TBN to the MT.

In summary PLD Issues are: Controlled sustain, lacks 2 Personals, has useless abilities such as "Cover", Blocking being Janky, depedent on auto attacks for personal cooldowns, DV being a worse shake it off and also being clunky, Passage of arms being too situational, Intervention actually just being a worser CD then all the other tank cds

The benefits of Paladin are pretty much a joke If you want a tank with sustain? go warrior, if you want a tank with mitigation? go dark knight, want a tank with a bit of both go gunbreaker, two of which also do more damage and all are way more simple to play.

I think they need to reduce req/confit healing and put that somewhere else giving PLD a OCD heal (Not replacing clemency, because its a good ability), would generally be a good step, fixing up cover and DV/Passage and making Holy shelltron less clunky would generally at least put PLD a bit more in line with other tanks.

[ForsakenRoe]

I think they need to reduce req/confit healing and put that somewhere else giving PLD a OCD heal (Not replacing clemency, because its a good ability), would generally be a good step, fixing up cover and DV/Passage and making Holy shelltron less clunky would generally at least put PLD a bit more in line with other tanks.

An idea that came to me while I was going to the fridge to get a drink just now, with Holy Sheltron and the Knight's Benediction regen effect on it and Intervention, I wonder if the solution is as simple as just adding an extra line to the Oath Gauge trait that says 'When the Paladin Autoattacks or suffers damage, they generate 5 Oath Gauge'. So being MT would allow them to get much more gauge, leading to more Sheltron regen effect, and allowing them to throw more Interventions on the Co-Tank if eg the PLD is OT but takes a TB that applies a bleed. Each tick of that bleed would generate 5 Oath Gauge too, so they'd be able to regen their way through the bleed they normally struggle with a bit easier (Block doesn't mitigate bleeds)

[Gserpent]

I think they need to reduce req/confit healing and put that somewhere else giving PLD a OCD heal (Not replacing clemency, because its a good ability), would generally be a good step, fixing up cover and DV/Passage and making Holy shelltron less clunky would generally at least put PLD a bit more in line with other tanks.

I mean, no. Clemency is a garbage ability that is *literally unused* outside of the occasional odd scenario in blind prog.

You actually described exactly why Clemency sucks so much - it's a worse version of buttons all of the other tanks get, because unlike those buttons, Clemency costs DPS. It would be like if TBN didn't give Dark Arts, except even then TBN would still be better because you're not losing a GCD on top of the mana (and the amount of shielding is quite a lot more than the amount healed by Clemency, besides.)

Given PLD's lack of both personal defenses and buddy skills (Intervention is a flatly worse buddy skill than any other tank button, except for when you're using it on another tank and you're both kitchen sinking a tankbuster... at which point it's basically just breaking even), making Clemency actually usable in a practical sense is the obvious step to take. It's an iconic PLD ability that never sees use, and unlike Cover, you can actually fix it to be useful without breaking the game. Making it an oGCD that costs gauge fixes the ability completely... assuming you're making Sheltron the same 20/25 sec cooldown personal defense button with no cost that the other tanks have.

I'm assuming we're talking about a setting wherein they fix Sheltron's issues with how they designed tank damage to operate - that is, they make block affect dots and the like. I can't imagine they aren't going to be doing that, or otherwise boosting Sheltron's personal effects such that PLD is no longer taking a substantially larger amount of damage than other tanks.

[Rithy255]

I mean, no. Clemency is a garbage ability that is *literally unused* outside of the occasional odd scenario in blind prog.

You actually described exactly why Clemency sucks so much - it's a worse version of buttons all of the other tanks get, because unlike those buttons, Clemency costs DPS. It would be like if TBN didn't give Dark Arts, except even then TBN would still be better because you're not losing a GCD on top of the mana (and the amount of shielding is quite a lot more than the amount healed by Clemency, besides.)

Given PLD's lack of both personal defenses and buddy skills (Intervention is a flatly worse buddy skill than any other tank button, except for when you're using it on another tank and you're both kitchen sinking a tankbuster... at which point it's basically just breaking even), making Clemency actually usable in a practical sense is the obvious step to take. It's an iconic PLD ability that never sees use, and unlike Cover, you can actually fix it to be useful without breaking the game. Making it an oGCD that costs gauge fixes the ability completely... assuming you're making Sheltron the same 20/25 sec cooldown personal defense button with no cost that the other tanks have.

I'm assuming we're talking about a setting wherein they fix Sheltron's issues with how they designed tank damage to operate - that is, they make block affect dots and the like. I can't imagine they aren't going to be doing that, or otherwise boosting Sheltron's personal effects such that PLD is no longer taking a substantially larger amount of damage than other tanks.

I'm sorry if you don't think Clemency is useful then I don't just agree with you, It's not meant to be a common use ability in optimal situations, it's meant to be a backup tool for Paladin, besides if you think it's useless in a lot of situations theirs a lot of abilities that could be changed (without removing anything other then shield bash) Instead to make space for the ability.

removing it Making it "cost gauge" makes no sense considering could be just I don't know add that same ability to OGCD heal, instead of removing clemency in it's current form you could easily remove something like Shield bash, or make req turn into confit (so many other ways) to make space without removing clemency but adding in another skill. That's a better compromise as PLD can both have strong OGCD healing (for a tank) and current clemency for a consistent way to heal/save allies even if it's "not optimal"

Clemency isn't meant to be a tanking CD replacement, it's meant to be a niche backup tool and that's fine it's actually a really useful ability in progression and yes it's like complaining about why red mage vercure isn't a amazing ability, it's really not meant to be a optiomal ability, theirs also Other content then raiding content such as Solo content where yes clemency is beyond useful.

[Mithron]

I'm sorry if you don't think Clemency is useful then I don't just agree with you, It's not meant to be a common use ability in optimal situations, it's meant to be a backup tool for Paladin, besides if you think it's useless in a lot of situations theirs a lot of abilities that could be changed (without removing anything other then shield bash) Instead to make space for the ability.

removing it Making it "cost gauge" makes no sense considering could be just I don't know add that same ability to OGCD heal, instead of removing clemency in it's current form you could easily remove something like Shield bash, or make req turn into confit (so many other ways) to make space without removing clemency but adding in another skill. That's a better compromise as PLD can both have strong OGCD healing (for a tank) and current clemency for a consistent way to heal/save allies even if it's "not optimal"

Clemency isn't meant to be a tanking CD replacement, it's meant to be a niche backup tool and that's fine it's actually a really useful ability in progression and yes it's like complaining about why red mage vercure isn't a amazing ability, it's really not meant to be a optiomal ability, theirs also Other content then raiding content such as Solo content where yes clemency is beyond useful.

And I just don't agree with you. Clemancy is most definitely not useful until the situation is so dire that when it is useful, it's only "okay." I'd much rather it be useful 100% of the time than maybe 1% of the time.

And I don't think its solo/other content uses should outweigh its use in relevant content. Relevant content must always come first. Clemancy's current iteration fails to fulfill the class fantasy and job identity of PLD. Intervention's EW upgrade helped a lot in this regard, now do the same for Clemancy.

I agree Shield Bash (and Cover) needs to be addressed too, but Clemancy is a far higher priority.

And yes I complain about Vercure too, but Vercure is much less bad than Clemancy.

[Rithy255]

And I just don't agree with you. Clemancy is most definitely not useful until the situation is so dire that when it is useful, it's only "okay." I'd much rather it be useful 100% of the time than maybe 1% of the time.

And I don't think its solo/other content uses should outweigh its use in relevant content. Relevant content must always come first. Clemancy's current iteration fails to fulfill the class fantasy and job identity of PLD. Intervention's EW upgrade helped a lot in this regard, now do the same for Clemancy.

I agree Shield Bash (and Cover) needs to be addressed too, but Clemancy is a far higher priority.

And yes I complain about Vercure too, but Vercure is much less bad than Clemancy.

Issue is you say solo/other content should outweigh the other relevant content, but why should raids determine a ability that doesn't/shouldn't negatively effect PLD in any way? even if you never changed clemency it doesn't harm PLD to have it all of a sudden, unless they tax it? (which I don't think they do, they more so tax cover/passage defensively)

Not everyplayer is going to be a hardcore raider and having a nice niche ability that allows PLD to save runs in casual content, allows them to solo and even importantly Help with prog (which anyone denying that prog isn't important is just wrong).

I just don't see your issue with clemency it's a free ability that is useful in Progression and raiding content, it doesn't matter if it's rare or not. I agree that PLD should have a direct OGCD Heal option but removing clemency because it isn't useful in the content you like? no thanks

Clemency gives class identity for me at least, powerful tank with a solo heal or emergency option, what would be good is paladin Also getting a OGCD heal

[Gserpent]

Issue is you say solo/other content should outweigh the other relevant content, but why should raids determine a ability that doesn't/shouldn't negatively effect PLD in any way?

Because savage/ultimate raiding is what they design and balance the game around, and if a button is useless or near-useless in those contexts it tends to get changed or removed. I bet we're going to see Shield Bash removed, too.

PLD is currently underperforming on both sustain and DPS fronts in meaningful content, and it's missing tools that other tanks have. Clemency is the natural solution to both of those problems. The only difference in how they choose to fix it. Moving Sheltron to be an independent skill and moving Clemency to gauge, along with making it oGCD, makes the most sense to me. You use Intervention if your buddy is going to be taking a substantial amount of damage, or if they might die without the extra mitigation. Otherwise you use Clemency.

You not liking this *doesn't matter.* It's how things are going to be. As I've said before, if you actually care about class fantasy or diversity or uniqueness, you are playing the wrong game and you should play something else if those things genuinely matter to you. Yoshida was very clear on them "moving forward with 5.0 design."

[Mithron]

Moving Sheltron to be an independent skill and moving Clemency to gauge, along with making it oGCD, makes the most sense to me.

This is the most logical, as no other tank has to rely on auto attack uptime to keep their mitigation readily available. It's not so much a "unique feature" as it is an "active hindrance" that makes PLD even worse than the other tanks. Oblation has two charges with 60s cooldown, Nascent is just a cooldown, Heart of Corundrum is just a cooldown. None of them suffer from downtime, and given Intervention's cooldown, it's not really viable to drop two of them on two targets very quickly in any realistic mechanic.

These are not the "unique features" I want from PLD.

[Rithy255]

Because savage/ultimate raiding is what they design and balance the game around, and if a button is useless or near-useless in those contexts it tends to get changed or removed. I bet we're going to see Shield Bash removed, too.

PLD is currently underperforming on both sustain and DPS fronts in meaningful content, and it's missing tools that other tanks have. Clemency is the natural solution to both of those problems. The only difference in how they choose to fix it. Moving Sheltron to be an independent skill and moving Clemency to gauge, along with making it oGCD, makes the most sense to me. You use Intervention if your buddy is going to be taking a substantial amount of damage, or if they might die without the extra mitigation. Otherwise you use Clemency.

You not liking this *doesn't matter.* It's how things are going to be. As I've said before, if you actually care about class fantasy or diversity or uniqueness, you are playing the wrong game and you should play something else if those things genuinely matter to you. Yoshida was very clear on them "moving forward with 5.0 design."

"Because savage/ultimate raiding is what they design and balance"
I guess they should remove Peloton, because you don't use it in raids!!!

No the game isn't only about savage (a small margin of people play it, but I agree that savage should be balanced), abilities that can fit outside of savage but still be useful should have their place, even if we wanna argue that we should solely balance around savage, that's a poor argument and a big reason why dark knight doesn't feel good in big pulls and warrior gets to be sleep mode (both which i disagree with). We cannot just balance only around savage, ignoring solo play which where clemency shines doesn't really help.

Beyond that clemency does actually have it's uses in progression, the mentality behind "well it's only prog..." makes no sense Progression is the Most Important balance to get right in the game way more important then reclears.

Clemency isn't a Issue again, if you want a OCGD heal I agree, but theirs other ways to give PLD a ocgd heal without ruining it's solo survivability and ways to save a run.

Also when I mean "Clemency is free" I mean that theirs no cost for having it on your hotbar other then existing, Sure I can agree that cover/passage aren't free but that's because I have a feeling they actually effect the tank defensively with lacking some personals. While Clemency could still exist on PLD without having a "cost" for existing

[ThatRobGuy]

I just don't see your issue with clemency it's a free ability

This is the issue with clemency- it isn't free. Paladin is balanced around having multiple abilities like clemency, passage, and cover that are all highly situational. The end result is that any time these abilities aren't useful (ie most of the time) the paladin has objectively weaker defenses and utility than the other tanks. People are just trying to brainstorm ways to make the existing abilities useful in more situations.

Making shelltron a standard cooldown and making clemency an oGCD that uses gauge would accomplish that. It wouldn't be perfect, but it would be useful in more situations and help Paladin with the survivability and utility it currently lacks.