Paladin: Reworking Niche Skills

[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.

[Valence]

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.

It's always the problem with SE isn't it? They'd rather delete something badly tuned than adjust it.

BUT to be fair, that's not exactly the case here as people like to bring up ARR WAR every time a HP based tank concept is mentioned, but they always consistently forget that SE actually fixed this problem somewhere in ARR. I haven't played during ARR, but it was still like this in HW and I can tell you for sure that WAR was definitely not benched at that point. So what did change mid ARR? Defiance used to only increase HP by 25%, SE later added a +25% healing actions on the tank as well. Now you can question if it isn't the same as just slapping 20% mitigation like for PLD and be done with it I guess.

[Mikey_R]

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.

Just to pull up the old patch notes from 2.1 as a reference:

https://eu.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...c43828a#battle

Just to focus on the defensive side, Defiance never used to have inbuilt healing increase, that was tied to Wrath stacks, Storm's Path did not originally have the reduce damage debuff, got it in 2.1 (though Butcher's Block combo was still stronger), Holmgang never had the 'never' die effect, it was just a draw in before, Vengeance only used to have the counter attack, but no mitigation, Inner Beast used to have no mitigation, just massive healing, it was changed to reduce the heal, but have mitigation. Foresight used to be a defence buff of 20%, which was nowhere near as powerful as Rampart's 20% mitigation (IIRC, it was equivalent to about 8% mitigation).

And just to mention, the increased HP WAR got from Defiance gave the same effective HP as the Paladin in Shield Oath, so, whilst Paladin got tons of defensive power, the Warrior had nothing and so couldn't survive the hits in the first place. Whilst this is not necessarily an exhaustive list of the initial Warrior problems, but it does highlight where they went wrong, not enough tools to help them survive the hits they were meant to be taking. With 2.1 basically fixing Warrior, this was the start of it's domination in tanking, which it did through all of ARR and HW. I don't remember if it was quite as dominating in SB, but it certainly was not weak there either.

Could they fix Warrior to be more of a HP tank, increasing health to survive hits or another method? Sure, why not. For all intents and purposes, it is the same as mitigating damage, as long as they also have a way to increase healing to help heal out the increased HP.

[Shurrikhan]

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.

It wasn't the HP increase that kept it benched. It was that WAR was simply undertuned for all but AoE damage and it was originally only as sustainable as a DPS because unlike Shield Oath, Defiance didn't increase the value of healing received (taking 20% less damage = 25% more eHP and 25% increased healing efficiency on it, while Defiance gave only the +25% HP but initially depended on Wrath stacks to even make healing more efficient, with said stacks spent whenever it used Inner Beast or Steel Cyclone). Once Defiance changed to increase relative healing received in itself instead of having to build up that capacity and losing it whenever one used their special, that part was actually fine.

Apart from that, it had less ST DPS than PLD despite having originally zero native defensives that would actually reduce healing requirements (all heal-efficiency increases outside of Wrath stacks' were from Gladiator).

But once instead tuned appropriately, lo and behold, WAR was far from benched.

Not a fundamental design issue, just a tuning one.

[PyurBlue]

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

While I may not agree, I do understand that point of view. What I'm asking for isn't quite what FF14 is right now and would take more effort to make than trimming vestiges of game design that SE has moved away from. I think it's worth the cost and I want to encourage SE to steer the game in that direction. At the same time I accept that focusing on what we have now and making less involved changes is an alternative despite not being my preference.

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.

This is why just keeping the skills around isn't my end goal. I want them to also be integrated into the game. SE could adjust stun, they could revisit dungeon and enemy design, they have options to make these skills usable and fun and I would prefer having those options pursued instead of further culling underused ideas.

On the flip side, removing skills doesn't mean that we will get anything interesting in return. I'm not convinced of the path that SE has been taking in recent expansions and I don't think it's skill bloat or niche abilities that are harming jobs. It's the entire direction of the job design that is at fault. I want it to change.

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.

Exactly. The skills don't amount to much in a vacuum. They need mechanics to interact with. I want those mechanics to become development priorities. I want SE to focus on making the game interesting by looking at underused ideas and improving them.

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.

It's subjective I suppose, but while I never use Cure I when Cure II is available, let alone Afflatus, I do actually use Low Blow and Interject.

Making everything AOE, isn't what I suggested;

It isn't and I was responding to similar sentiments that I've seen in other discussions about merging ST and AoE rotations together. There was nothing in my post saying this so the confusion is my fault.

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.

Are you suggesting that HC becomes something like a cone to give the tank the ability to avoid hitting something despite it being AoE? I guess that could work but I see it as clunkier than having a dedicated ST button. If you only want to hit one thing then having a big sweeping hitbox isn't useful. If I'm not understanding let me know. I'm not sure if I took the correct meaning from this part of the post.

Multiboss fights can be as simple as one to one tank to boss, but they don't have to be. Tethers, puddles, buffs, and other things can have the two bosses moving around quite a lot and depending on where they are in relation to one another the player may want to use different skills. This is one of the few instances where rotations aren't static in this game and that's one reason why I like them.

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.

It's because the sentiment is not about defending purposeless skills. It's about preventing potentially interesting mechanics from getting shelved just because they're underused. Or put in another way "X skill was useful in this content, wouldn't it be interesting if this other content took some of the elements that made it useful?".

You're completely right in thinking that holding on to things for the sake of having them won't improve the game. Most people would agree.

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...?

Let me just ask then, do you think there is any merit to adding depth or complexity to other content that would make CC useful?

So tanks defensives now generate aggro instead of offensive? which dehomogenizes them how?

As things currently stand:

DPS deal damage through DPSing
Tanks gain aggro through DPSing

It's not very different. FF14 tanks are DPS with lower numbers. If tanks had to worry about something other than DPS uptime it would differentiate the tank role from the other roles. Healers, on paper, have to react to damage which differentiates them from tanks and DPS.

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.

I envision that defensive actions would generate the bulk of aggro for all tanks, but specifics could vary from tank to tank. The most import aspect of defensive aggro is to make tanks as a role feel different from DPS. Secondly it meshes better with logic/lore, which is a flavor thing.

Also by defensive actions I don't necessary mean Rampart and the like. Low Blow and Passage of Arms are better examples. Actions where the tank impedes an ememy's ability to harm the party. Making this work properly will require more than adding aggro generation to these skills. Tanks would probably need more CC, especially during openers. Though a halfway approach could also be taken where attack aggro remains but is reduced while CC/defense aggro is added to make up the difference.

The difference in gameplay would be that as a tank you would have to watch the enemy's actions and try to negate them. There is no class in the game that has the ability to move or reshape AoE attacks from bosses. Such an ability would fit in with my idea of defensive aggro.

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)

I don't see those things as opposing ideas. They'd be great additions to a revamped aggro system that focuses more on tanks being tanks. The 2 minute meta is something I wouldn't miss. Even skill consolidation isn't something I outright oppose, though we do have different ideas of what is useless/boring. The skills that would be at the top of my cutlist are use on CD abilities. You don't think about them, you just press them every X seconds. They have virtually zero impact on the game outside of speeding up the somewhat slow 2.5 second GCD rythm.

[Rithy255]

Snip.

I think I'll leave a shorter reply here as I think I understand what your saying a bit more after that response, though I think we're arguing more over ATP are you changes feasible and worth it.

My suggestions (outside of wider tank changes) such as making holy spirit a cleave and merging lowblow/interject I do not see as a bad thing, because they currently do not interact with the game in a interesting manner if that does change then yes they are fine as they are, but as it stands currently no they just collect space off PLD's hot bar.

Either solution you make CC actually very important and more useful (something I don't see happening) or you consolidate more niche skills and some instances of some spender attacks like Holy spirit into AOE which can be used to further what a PLD can generally which is somewhat more feasible to me.

Do I think or want CC to be useful? maybe? It depends how it's implemented, I don't really personally play tank to interrupt enemies or what not but at the same time I can see how some people would generally enjoy that, I mostly play Tanks to be the party protector who uses cooldowns and mitigations to help my team, other then being a slow diet DPS (Opposed to one button dps on Healer) I think ff14 can do a better job of that which is what I want for the job, though if they add CC related stuff aslong as its fun then sure why not I'm not opposed to it.