Paladin: Reworking Niche Skills

[Carighan]

Stun being something that can be resisted means you don't want to throw it out needlessly (though it's not like the game punishes you much for it) and that alone warrants keeping the two abilities separate.

So quick, check the last month how often you had to interrupt one target and then with in 25 seconds stun another one that you could actually stun. I'll give you for ease of checking that only a single Dawntrail dungeon has a pack of enemies where one wants to use an ability you can stun them out of while another uses an interruptible cast. And speaking as a healer for most of those runs, not a single tank bothers to interrupt the interruptible cast since it only deals like 40% HP to DPS and is only used once, and you can also count the number of non-Paladin tanks that ever use a stun on a single hand for the entire data center.

[Carighan]

Yeah there's a lot of that. Given how FFXIV doesn't really have mezz-type CC and even the single one we have is not ever used except to abort explosions, there's no reason to have dedicated AoE vs single-target abilities, anyways. A huge amount of hotbar space could be cleared up by mostly getting, well, rid of single-target abilities and instead making everything an AoE for some percentage or even all of its damage. On most jobs this should give an easy 6-10 buttons of free space to use for actually cool abilities, at 0 loss of gameplay functionality as like I said, we are never in a situation where we don't want to hit targets. There's no mezzes here.

[Valence]

In the last month? Very often in Pilgrim Traverse actually.

[Carighan]

LOL, fair enough. Forgot that sad fart of a content place still exists.

[Valence]

Not gonna pretend that everything is great in there, but the actual need or help for crowd control and the unexpected has been incredibly refreshing comparatively to any other piece of pve in the game right now.

[Carighan]

Yeah but I'd rather have a single "interrupt" skill that stuns when possible and interrupts otherwise, and play with CD/charges. Saves hotbar space, and allows better identity modification (maybe only Paladins have Shield Bash instead of Interject, which is the only one that stuns in the first place, stuff like that).

[PyurBlue]

So quick, check the last month how often you had to interrupt one target and then with in 25 seconds stun another one that you could actually stun

Tam Tara would be the most recent. Not sure if it counts with that dungeon amounting to a tutorial at this point, and it's also the same enemy. Dohn Mheg would be just over a month. There is also The Twinning, but I can't even remember when it last came up.

You're very right in pointing out that this isn't common, but like I said I'd rather fix the frequency and implementation instead of throwing away good ideas.

Not gonna pretend that everything is great in there, but the actual need or help for crowd control and the unexpected has been incredibly refreshing comparatively to any other piece of pve in the game right now.

This is another reason why I'd rather see aggro on defensive abilities instead of offensive ones. It's a way to bring meaningful crowd control back into the game and dehomogenize tanks.

[Rithy255]

I've heard the Low Blow/Interject idea before but I don't like it at all. Stun being something that can be resisted means you don't want to throw it out needlessly (though it's not like the game punishes you much for it) and that alone warrants keeping the two abilities separate. It gives more control to the player and a small opportunity to workout optimized usage for each.

Making everything AoE is also something I'd like to avoid. It kills 2 target rotations, the latest of which is M10 where depending on how the enemies are positioned, you have to think about whether you want to use a 1 target or 2 target rotation. There are also a handful of situations where you'd want to avoid hitting things, especially as tank. A few alliance raid adds and some dual raid bosses require separation. Those are interesting mechanics that need to be included more instead of thrown out.

Ok so here's my problem it feels like your making the right points about the wrong game.

Like sure we can pretend theirs situations where you'd want to save a stun where you have to use a interrupt? but like when where? I've never used Interject and said "I'm sure glad I didn't have to use up low blow there" it just makes no sense, what are we optimising here? two skills that barely get used, most effort I've ever put into either is rembering my interrupt even exists when i see the cast bar look funny and go "hey oh wow" in amazement, or im stunning a mob with low blow for extra mitigation if i dont have a white mage in my duty.

We are not optimising anything here currently, If they suddenly decide to make stuns and interrupts both super integral to tanking in 99% then perhaps I could maybe see your point. I feel like Cure 1 Is a more defendable skill then keeping both separate abilities, which is wild because cure 1 needs to go lol.

Making everything AOE, isn't what I suggested; Though frankly Cleave exists currently I don't think it's a bad thing actually making Holy Circle a Cleave and saving space would reward you for not just pressing holy circle (as it would be a upgraded version of holy spirit) off cooldown, which makes the PLD rotation even more fun and optimise in 2 target situations. Also fighting against requiring is pretty easy considering its one tank on boss the other on boss both have stance, cleave does less damage, woah the bosses target two different tanks... amazing.

This sort of sentiment holds back the game, It's the "what about shield bash guys? it was useful in a deep dungeon!" then make it a duty action I don't care whatever, Job design shouldn't be denied skills and stagnating for years because "x skill was useful in this content" I just can't understand this sort of argument and why it's so popular here, Because as much as I've spoken against ff14's bad job design choices before I don't think we should geuinely just defend skills that serve zero purpose, theirs a reason why they removed flash it sucked, so does shield bash.

In summary, no theirs nothing that would change about PLD if you merged these skills at all in any feasible content other then pilgrims Traverse apparently...?

In the last month? Very often in Pilgrim Traverse actually.

Ok so like add a phantom job that can do both so you can have your dynamic gameplay of having a option between a stun or interrupt and you have to make a wise choice.

Funny thing is you could add 2 charges to this Stun/interrupt and lose hardly anything lol, though I suppose it would lose "dynamic decision making" I just can't really understand how its not worth it to trim the actual bloat off skills, give PLD more to do that's intresting and different from the other tanks.

This is another reason why I'd rather see aggro on defensive abilities instead of offensive ones. It's a way to bring meaningful crowd control back into the game and dehomogenize tanks.

So tanks defensives now generate aggro instead of offensive? which dehomogenizes them how? are some going to generate it through that while others don't? or what's the big picture here, I don't see this even changing tanks as you use defensive abilities all the time anyway if your a half decent tank, your swapping one required job (doing damage as tank or any ffxiv job) for the other (mitting as a support). I just don't see how your suggestions/counterpoints sounds like it would actually dehomogenizes tanks.

Personally I'd want tanks to have differences in how they mitigate (such as war having big hp bar but lacking as much mits, PLD having great support and utility, Gnb being a jack of all trades, DRK augmenting defensives that changes what it does switch dark mind into a physical skill, make oblation grant small life steal, make shadow wall weaker but a shorter CD ect.) Give them better different damage buttons, burst windows remove 2 minute meta so tanks aren't forced to be builder spender I do think two things realistically need to happen though is that 1. Please remove the majority if not all of these generic press once every 2 minutes "buff the party" buttons 2. Trim down on skills that are frankly useless, merge when possible Cleave exists and is fine (not everything needs to be AOE)

[Atreus]

Personally I'd want tanks to have differences in how they mitigate (such as war having big hp bar but lacking as much mits

Would it be wrong to assume you were not here for ARR? That's what WAR's Defiance used to do and that style of tanking kept it on the bench in favor of two PLD.

[Carighan]

Would it be wrong to assume you were not here for ARR? That's what WAR's Defiance used to do and that style of tanking kept it on the bench in favor of two PLD.

We know from other MMOs and non-MMOs however that the concept works, and perfectly fine. This would indicate that the problem in ARR was one of lack of balance, not flaws in concept.