Ideas for PLD

[Taskmage]

The only thing I think they have left to give us is a Paladin only spell. Mainly because we are the only job without an only spell and quite frankly, I don't want to be left out of that. Other than that, I think SE has done a pretty good job with everything else.

Hmm, I'll give you that. Every other spellcasting job as at least one thing that only they have access to save pld. They should get some love in that department too. Maybe a self-target Reflect spell in the late 30s-mid 40s? A White Wind type healing spell would be fun to play around as a tank, too. Perhaps faster and cheaper than Cure IV but on a long timer?

But I also agree with what others have said in that paladins have gotten tons of great stuff lately and will at very least have to wait their turn again before SE considers tweaking them again. That and the job doesn't really need anything new right now.

[Vyuru]

Lay off the 4chon for a sec.

Let's not be throwing mud in the issue here please.

A quick glance at the patch notes shows that we were neglected for a long time. Keyword being were.

Really, yeah, the updates to pld were nice and all, but I honestly think they needed them about as much as drg needed a new two hour, also known as not at all.

Let's look at some of the tweaks:

Max hp lowered
No more elemental defense increases as you level
Max mp lowered
Sentinel's effectiveness is lowered
Pld are now forced from the DD slot to the tank slot, almost like ninja >.>
Shields no longer negate damage when blocking an attack.

And it seems to be about here that SE starts giving the shield mastery traits, and stuff like that. So in other words, it looks to me like pld got a helluva lot of nerfs that SE has only started to change. Think ranger.

And despite all those nerfs, pld have been the best and preferred tanks ever since I started to play, back in 02/11

Looking at the patch notes I'd have to say no, you guys were not neglected for a long time. Pld seems to be just about right at the moment, and I think SE should focus on something more like Drk for instance, or possibly Pup, before the focus turns to Pld again.

[DrivenTooFar]

Hmm, I'll give you that. Every other spellcasting job as at least one thing that only they have access to save pld. They should get some love in that department too. Maybe a self-target Reflect spell in the late 30s-mid 40s? A White Wind type healing spell would be fun to play around as a tank, too. Perhaps faster and cheaper than Cure IV but on a long timer?

I've always liked the idea of Paladin getting Reflect. This would seem like a really cool spell, especially against the Colibris. It could also help with damage mitigation and hate. For damage mitigation it would be obvious. The enemy casts the spell and gets hit with it. For hate, a Black Mage could cast it on the Paladin and have it reflect onto the enemy, tricking them into thinking it was the Paladin. Of course, reflect would have to be destroyed once a spell hits it to keep it from being overpowered.

White Wind would be cool also and I always thought that maybe they should have some kind of -aga healing. I'm not sure they would do this one though.

[Malacite]

I would like to see a bit of an offensive boost to PLD as well, but here's the primary change I think SE should make in regards to the stupidly low diminishing returns on DEF.

Change PLD's Defense Bonus traits to 10% damage reduction. This would greatly help a PLD to sustain him/herself with little support from the mages, and help level the playing field against Utsusemi (no dmg taken)

[Hankthetank]

Geared well a Paladin can already deal Damage on par with anybody in a merit party setting. If a significant DD buff was given to us, the playerbase would be screaming for a nerf before years end.

If you want to deal damage, all you have to do is dress for it. No new ability is required.

Sincerely,
Hank

[IfritnoItazura]

PLD is fine as is; Lv.57 so far, and I don't feel any need for a new spell, job ability, etc. Neither need nor desire changes to them, either. (Really, all I want is more Gil and time to acquire better gear, and there's nothing S-E can do about that.)

FFXI dev team's resources are limited; I much rather they spend their time and money to even out the exp'ing in ToAU area compared to RoZ, CoP, and other area, or fix up other jobs, or do something about the utter imbalance between TP spam vs. SC+MB.

There is a long list of things to fix, and item "Paladin" is checked and done. Move on.

[BlackSerenade]

Let's not be throwing mud in the issue here please.

Hey, is it my fault he was being nigra? I think not.

If you want to deal damage, all you have to do is dress for it. No new ability is required.

Quoted for truth.

[Malacite]

PLD is fine as is; Lv.57 so far, and I don't feel any need for a new spell, job ability, etc. Neither need nor desire changes to them, either. (Really, all I want is more Gil and time to acquire better gear, and there's nothing S-E can do about that.)

You clearly haven't hit the DEF cap then. I have several PLD buddies, who can all pop berserk and still take the exact same damage as before. This is outright stupid, and needs to be fixed. As someone said before, a PLD/WAR using a "turtle" strategy should actually be feasible, but sadly isn't due to diminishing returns.

[IfritnoItazura]

You clearly haven't hit the DEF cap then. I have several PLD buddies, who can all pop berserk and still take the exact same damage as before. This is outright stupid, and needs to be fixed. As someone said before, a PLD/WAR using a "turtle" strategy should actually be feasible, but sadly isn't due to diminishing returns.

That's interesting, but exactly how does that get in the way of a PLD tanking?

From speaking with a couple of Lv.75 PLD's, it seems like PLD's currently "tank" in the traditional sense in many merit parties, using sushi and a good deal of attack gears. I don't think they terribly minded that defense has a "diminishing return" on T-VT mobs or whatever they are hunting in those parties.

Maybe this analogy would make sense: Humans need oxygenated air to live--but, above a certain percentage, we won't get significant additional benefit from more oxygen in the air. That hardly means the human body is broken and need to be fixed. We're not perfect, but good enough, I say.

* * *

Have you leveled PLD yourself? If not, give it a shot; it's quite fun, and just fine the way it is--at least up to Lv.57, I assure you.

[Vyuru]

don't think they terribly minded that defense has a "diminishing return" on T-VT mobs or whatever they are hunting in those parties.

I kind of wonder about that sometimes, just howmuch of a diminishing returns is there?

At lvl 61+ T ranges from +1-3 levels above you, VT from 4-7, IT from 8-12.

I think it's safe to say that you'd see a difference in amount of damage taken from a +12 lvl above you mob, and say a VT +4 lvls above you. But between T and VT? Maybe if it was 1 lvl above you vs 7 lvls above you, you might see a difference. But I'm guessing that there are certain areas you can exp where the mobs are between 3-7 lvls above you, so there would be really little difference in T and VT besides exp.

I know I've encountered that with drg while soloing, there would be mobs that conned EM and mobs that conned T, and more often then not I could take the T mobs for WAY more exp and spend only an extra 20 mp to do it in and maybe tag on an extra 20-30 seconds in comparison to fighting a EM.

[Karinya]

You clearly haven't hit the DEF cap then. I have several PLD buddies, who can all pop berserk and still take the exact same damage as before. This is outright stupid, and needs to be fixed. As someone said before, a PLD/WAR using a "turtle" strategy should actually be feasible, but sadly isn't due to diminishing returns.

This contradicts both my personal experience and the best known theories of how attack and defense work (the Studio Gobli/VZX formulae), so I'm going to have to ask for more evidence.

Please specify what monsters they were fighting, what gear and food they were using, and if possible, provide parse results.

In my experience, the difference between full defense gear and full defense gear + Defender is immediately noticeable on HNMs and Dynamis/Limbus mobs; with Berserk your defense would fall to near DD levels, and they take roughly double the damage I take per hit.

DEF has diminishing returns, but there is no specific point that is a "cap", hard or soft; and improving DEF will continue to significantly reduce damage taken until you are being hit for 0 on a regular basis, something which is impossible or nearly impossible to achieve on EM or higher mobs.

At most, you might force the attacker into the part of the pDIF curves where their maximum possible damage doesn't change, but their minimum and average damage still decreases as you continue to add DEF. If you didn't look carefully enough this might give the false impression that more DEF isn't helping. (But if you add *enough* DEF you can get past that region and start decreasing their max damage again.)


Now, none of this implies that maximizing your DEF is necessarily the best possible approach to a party situation. With only 6 people, your personal damage may be significant to overall damage, and on weak mobs, damage is a larger portion of hate (plus, you also have to consider +enmity gear compared to DEF). This does not mean DEF is useless, but that something else is more useful. I don't think this implies that the game or the PLD job is broken. The same person can contribute to the party in more than one way, and I don't think sacrificing some DEF for more damage is necessarily wrong. You still probably have better DEF than anyone else in the party and have the shield skill, traits and JAs to reduce your damage taken even further, while at the same time managing hate (somewhat - hate is hard to manage on weak mobs, especially when the DDs aren't cooperating, which is most of the time).

However, I think Hank goes too far by saying that a PLD can do damage "on par with anybody". A PLD needs better gear to do equal damage. Hank's DD PLD gear is superb - about the best possible short of Excalibur or Ares armors - and I have no doubt that he can match or even beat the damage of an average WAR or MNK. But that's an unfair comparison, and I'm pretty sure that if those jobs have the best possible gear for them - even ruling out relic weapons and Salvage gear - they'll still come out on top.

[Armando]

I've pretty much come to the conclusion that the PDIF formulas we know apply only to players hitting mobs, because when mobs attack us the PDIF ranges just don't act like Studio Gobli's formulas say they should. You'd think that with Cocoon, Protect, and Defense food you'd get a Too Weak mob 15 levels lower than you to start hitting for 0, yet all you get is hits that are still doing 10-30 depending on the mob. Moreover, I recall reading a long time ago that PDIF for mobs vs mobs has a limit of like 3 or 4 (like jug pets hitting Lv.0 mobs, for example.)

Also, I don't quite buy that you can pop Berserk and not see a difference. I was tanking Toramas last weekend, and my food just wore and the party was basically waiting for the last 4-5 mobs that I need to level so we could disband, I decided to try Sushi instead of Defense food since the damage I was taking seemed to be ok. I immediately noticed the difference in damage taken. Granted, the Toramas are IT mobs 9-11 levels higher than me, but even so. I also notice a difference when I click on Berserk for WS and forget to turn it off.

[Lmnop]

I think it'd be more accurate to say that when popping Berserk, these turtling Paladins see no difference. i.e. damage taken per swing goes from 40-55 to 45-62. Most of those numbers in between are where you'll prolly fall more often, so it comes out looking the same by the human eye.

About this plateau concept of hitting so much defense that you don't notice any more... Karinya, you say that if you contnued to add enough defense that you would eventually break through the "glass ceiling" and continue to notice good damage reduction anew. Would this level be anything feasible? I'm not talking about getting mobs to hit for 0 damage. I just mean like... maybe I should use one of my shitty examples:

As a Warrior, when I get hate I swap into my defense set. This ups my defense around 60 points. I end up getting hit... just as hard (or so it'd seem). I've seriously gotten hate before, gotten chomped for 90 damage so I swapped into defense gear. Wanna guess how much the next swing hit me for? over 120. I haven't done a lot of testing on how much Defender reduces damage taken at my level. Mostly because every time I use Defender, I die the very next swing regardless (the forgotten JA). Anyway, I'm assuming that what's happening is that even though I'm increasing defense, I'm stuck in one "tier" and I simply need more defense to pull over the hump and into PLD levels.

So what I'm getting at is - would PLD have yet another hump like this? DD gets hit for 90, standard PLD gets hit for 50. Would a super-defense PLD then get hit for 20? I'm thinking not. I'm thinking the best he could do - even with 999 defense - is probably 40. And then I guess there's what Armando said... would this be because of "the formula" or simply because mobs apparently have a much wider attack range.

[Malacite]

I can't recall exact specifics, but I do know it was before the sentinel change and he was using mostly AF and Tacos for food.

Even so, it still just seems wrong. As Armando said, you'd think piling on assloads of DEF would work, but it doesn't; It does have a noticable affect during EXP, but not to the extent you'd think it ought to.

Hell, just playing my BLU through the dunes using defense food, protect and cocoon I was still taking a good chunk of damage. While it did help, somehow having close to 150+ def in the dunes seemed like it should have had a more profound impact, but that's just me.

[LyonheartLakshmi]

It seems to me that the only real problem with PLD is player perception. Three years ago, when I started playing, player perception of WAR was very poor. We were looked at as being sub-optimal tanks and DDs who should just switch to either PLD or DRK.

What would the game be like today if SE had stepped in 3 years ago and increased the power of WAR in response to poor player perception?