So does every hate new PLD now?

[nia_saeli]

As much as I'd eventually like to see more polished challenging 4-man content than just Criterion dungeons, I'm disposed to agree, at least for the time being.

But the point stands that their aim to make PLD better benefit from buff is not what so changed PLD's gameplay.

The changes necessary to accomplish that goal were far fewer and subtler than what we got. The loss of Goring Blade, Holy Spirit spam (outside of no longer locking Conf combo behind it), etc., was wholly excessive.

We can look at the gameplay changes and rightly say, "This sucks." It would be wrong, though, to blame that on an inevitability to having halfway decent burst.

Now, if you wanted PLD to have overtuned rDPS enough to reach aDPS parity regardless even in 8-mans, then that's another story, but also not one specifically defined by its gameplay (only by the poorness of its major burst phase, regardless of what buttons are hit when).

I'll be honest, I don't know the impact of having "overtuned rDPS" vs "overtuned aDPS". Is there actually going to be issues if PLD were to have overtuned rDPS to be at parity with aDPS?

My understanding was that there was a specific DPS metric that mattered for tanks and PLD was doing substantially less of it. Regardless of which it is, my thought was that "the important DPS metric" could have been balanced for tanks without the 6.3 rework and with subtler changes to the rotation. If the "less important DPS metric" has to be higher or lower than "the important DPS metric", I don't particularly see the issue at the moment.

Regardless, I think we're both agreeing that the rotational changes were excessive.

[Shurrikhan]

I'll be honest, I don't know the impact of having "overtuned rDPS" vs "overtuned aDPS". Is there actually going to be issues if PLD were to have overtuned rDPS to be at parity with aDPS?

It's basically a matter of it overperforming in some comps while being balanced in others.

If it synergizes less with raid buffs, then it has only two options: to be underpowered in raid-buff-heavy comps or be underpowered in low-buff comps. Any broader parity would require it to be also have greater parity in its use of raid buffs.

Personally, I'd have been fine with it slightly overperforming in less optimal comps and slightly underperforming in optimized ones, as PLD has traditionally been a bit of an oddball pick anyways. I'm just pointing out the only point of logic there seems to have been in the direction of the change.

(Its execution on the other hand, isn't really defensible. It has one step forward in Divine Might and FoF affecting everything, and only steps back otherwise.)

Regardless, I think we're both agreeing that the rotational changes were excessive.

Yup. I would have been plenty happy to see Holy Spirit moved from a fixed Req consumer to prep Conf combo to a flexible ranged filler that's more iconic of PLD's unique ranged uptime capacity, and perhaps for FoF to grant 3 stacks of Sword Oath, with Goring Blade being untouched. The Goring change would be just... baffling... at least if not for so many other signs that the devs think we're all braindead.