Incoming PLD Adjustments

•Paladin

•The effect for the job ability Cover will be partially modified.

•The job ability Shield Bash will grant a damage bonus based on the type of shield used.

•The job ability Divine Emblem will grant a damage bonus based on the player's divine magic skill.

Source: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/9208

Cover: Pure Speculation, but I'm guessing either AOE Cover, or Resets Enmity of person you cover, or perhaps resets hate all together.

Shield Bash: Ochain Shield bash will be superior to Aegis Shield Bash.

Divine Emblem: lol?

I hope this is just SE's way of saying they know there's something wrong with PLD at the moment, and they're investigating ways to rebalance. Otherwise, this is just lolworthy. Probably the reason no one created a thread, 4 days after announcement.

2k Holy outside abyssea or fail.

Cover: I agree, Im hoping its something to do with enmity

Shield Bash: doubt it, Aegis has 200 damage naturally already over ochain(if not more from the upgrades?), so if anything it will be like a mini aegis?

DE: potentially good, potentially fail. Either way its 10mins til the next use so any use it has looks limited unless they rework the whole timer/duration on it.

Highly unlikely that Cover will get any substantial boost. SE doesn't throw the term "partially modified" in for things that matter.

well afaik, could be wrong its been a while since i equiped any shield but Aegis, don't the larger shields do more dmg?
Ochain being size 6 should natively do more than Aegis if it wasn't for the Aegis's "augments shield bash"

kind of off topic;
I just thought how nice it would be if PLD got an increased block rate % after shield bashing XD.

I don't see how Cover would reset enmity of target, that would mean they wouldn't have hate, and you'd no longer be covering them, they said partial change, not an overhaul. I'm expecting a static duration on Cover, rather than it's current random thing it has going, or not needing to be between enemy and party member.

Bash increase doesn't look impressive, shield size will just be a bonus modifier, Aegis will get the 5 modifier, Ochain the 6, Ochain won't beat Aegis thanks to Aegis' augment. (Though bash sucks anyway).

Emblem, 10 min recast, nuff said.

None of this even remotely fixes PLD

Cover won't lower the targets hate (because then hate would just shift to another DD/mage/MAYBE pld) rendering cover useless. If you as the pld received all hate generated by that DD while cover was on, or perhaps a portion, that would be possible.

edit:


beat me to it T.T

I am now thinking that maybe cover becoming a long lasting JA would be cool too. Maybe 3 mins every 5 and you only block 75% of attacks directed at teamate? It could also be cool if it was more like in other FF games, and the pld just blinked in front of a teammate to block a blow when they were in red hp (lol i dunno).

PLD gets the attention of the mob for 1 min, regardless of hate.

When cover wears off PLD gets a huge emnity boost.

yes please.

Cover stance? pld enters cover mode so that no matter who stands behind him/her they are protected.

Good idea. for the "that's broken" crowd, wouldn't be as broken as seperating yonnin/innin timers.
Like NIN really needed that...

thats what i was thinking.or at least hoping for anyway.

as for shield bash,ochain would beat aegis on pure shield size,but because aegis has the augments bash,aegis will still pull ahead in bashes.

and last but not least the divine emblem update,i just want DE flash to start doing damage or gtfo

How is that broken?

You can cycle the two now depending on situations. There's no longer any real penalty for choosing the wrong stance.
Canceling the stance was good enough. But now you get to bounce into the extreme inverse of one stance.

That is as much a game changer as Seigan/Hasso were to SAM.

Almost. The timer is still five minutes unless I missed something, so you get to swap, but not nearly as freely as a SAM.

/still awesome

They're still on 5 minute timers from what I am understanding.

If Cover covered everyone behind you, everyone could just stand behind you and spam infinitely. Besides AoE I suppose, but that's still incredibly broken.

At the mention of the red HP cover thing, I think there should be a job trait where anyone in red HP has a chance of being covered. Auto shield bash like kick attacks would be nice too. As would many other ideas proposed that aren't just whining PLDs wanting something ridiculously broken.

If the DE damage works with non-damage spells like Flash, it's a better bonus but the 10 min recast still means worthless.

Cover adjustment: Aoe accomplice(s).

You know god damn it i was just complaining about this.

If they reduced emblem's recast to say, like, idk, 3 mins and made it work like a DA Attack and Accuracy boost

That could fix ***.

The only way to actually make paladin worth while, is to increase damage potential. Idc what you say, a PLD can survive better then a MNK. MNK is better tank because it can do so much thanks to counterstance and impetus or w\e...

Give paladin a an attack modding ability, make CDC stronger, make vorpal stronger, make us hit harder faster

then we're a tank again.

The problem is that PLD was never meant to be a DD. As far as improving their tanking ability goes, increasing their damage is not the way to do it. The best fix would be attacking more often (in enmity capped situations) and/or a job trait that increases the enmity cap for pld.

They already said they have no plans to adjust that...

Honestly, they have like 3 routes to balance this job and they dance around them.

1) Make paladin the better DD. Give paladin something that at LEAST makes them compare to other jobs. Almace works wonders for me, until ukko wars and vere mnks in my shell show up and say "heeeeeeeeeeeeeey", then i'm a back up cure girl with only cure 4 and 500 mp.

2) Make paladin hate decay slow (they do that with "less emnity lost through physical damage" crap i guess), or make it non-existant. They states they will not alter hate caps on the se forums... so idk if this is even an option.

3) Impliment magic. Give paladin Curaja (i suggested this) Its like super cure 4. If you have no emnity, it heals like 900 and will pull rediculous hate. If you have a ton of emnity, it cures for next to nothing. Its a good hate check and it balances itself out nicely.

Idk.

I would say Ochain beats MNK on survivablity against anything melee.
Aegis on anything that casts magic.
MNK beats non-aegis, non-ochain PLDs on both. (referring to survivablity)
Its messed up but my MNK has easier attainable -pdt gear than my PLD.
To match my MNK's PDT I had to spend HOURS, and HOURS farming the right dark ring in abyssea-highlands. While that vital -5% pdt capping my MNK's set just happen to be available on an item I already attained years ago.

SE don't know wtf they're doing.

It just sucks... i have ochain

but if that mnk is there, he will get hate. he will because he pops out 6k ws's at random...

what can i do but spam CDC for 3.5k or hope for a 5k spike...

Inside abyssea,Nothing till SE re-examines game balance.
Outside Abyssea, where you actually need to let the plan play itself out, let said Ukon war or vere mnk be floored.
It costs the WHMs/RDMs less MP to raise a fool and wait for their 5 minute weakness to wear off than it does to spam CureV on them for 5 minutes.

So true. I'm ready for Abyssea to be done. This easy-mode era is boring...

As much as I'd like pld to deal more damage, I don't know that it will make us better tanks. It will certainly make us contribute more to the party, but won't do much for our tanking abilities. With CdC you should have no problem capping enmity. Once it's capped, unless the mob has a hate reset you can afk and you'll have the mobs attention just about the same amount as if you are spamming 10k damage weaponskills.

When I come paladin I'm almost always with a friend who is war. We both cap enmity pretty quick and the mob turns to attack whoever hit them last. There is no reason to flash, provoke or any of it at that point, it's just whoever hit it last. I'll have hate for a second, he'll land a 4k+ ws, I crit once for 280, it's back on me. Then he crits and it's back on him.

Just making pld do more damage will not make them hold hate. It might get us to the cap 5 seconds sooner, but from there having the mob's attention just comes down to whoever got the last shot in.

Don't get me wrong I would love to see some damage enhancements. I would like either a delay reduction or some sort of occasional counter attack when we block, but it won't help holding hate.

Even if a paladin could hold hate due to new job abilities and adjustments, why would people want them? Are mages really dieing out there because melee lost hate? Are meleeing dieing because the mob attacked them? Other than insta-death TP moves and doom it's pretty easy to keep people alive. There is no reason for a "tank" on almost any current ffxi NMs (there are exceptions, but not many). If I have a choice between a monk and a war or a war and a paladin or a monk and a paladin, why would I pick a setup involving the paladin when the monk and war can bounce hate fine and do substantially more damage?

If we're not a full blown DD and they don't change game mechanics significantly there is no reason to have a tank, it just slows you down.

Personally I would like to see defense actually matter and the enmity calculations updated a bit so that you aren't capping VE in 1 weaponskill and CE in 2. Job abilities like Berserk and Counterstance are based around the idea that you get a bonus in exchange for a penalty. In reality though lowering your defense does next to nothing. Until there is a reason that war and monk can't have hate without dieing on some mobs, there is no reason to have a paladin there.

I'm not trying to pick on those two jobs, the same can be said of sam. Why bother with seigan when you can hasso full time? Mobs pose no threat to players. Make the defense bonuses for paladin actually matter and give DD some sort of penalty for getting hate. Adjust the hate mechanics so that damage isn't the single fastest way to generate hate.

Just a bit of a refresher for some PLDs on hate. Hate caps at 1,000 CE and 1,000 VE. CE standing for cummulative enmity and VE for volatile enmity. Damage, enfeebling, spells, etc all cause VE and CE, generally more CE than VE. Job abilities such as provoke, counterstance, boost, etc generally cause more CE than VE rates. VE decays much faster than CE, and the major 3 ways to lose CE are being hit, losing an utsusemi shadow (Blink shadows of all forms do not count), and being hit by an enfeeble (Even if it's resisted)

In the case of PLD today, we still generate VE/CE amazingly fast, the problem is so does everyone else, they survive well enough, and they do more damage. We don't need anymore defense, we don't need ways of generating hate faster. PLD is still a good tank (in the very strict sense of the word). The problem lies within the fact EVERYONE can cap CE/VE and they provide more perks WHILE doing so.

Even if PLD's VE/CE values were 500 higher than everyone else, you still would have the PLD tank on MNK. Simply because the MNK could do the same job, get the same result, but also contribute damage.

Sadly unless PLD gets an adjustment to make their defense absolutely broken and then SE tailors mobs around them, their options are limited. Removing all the defensive buffs that allow DDs to tank would cause a downright mob I'm sure.

Augments Shield Bash will most likely be a minor improvement at best, and no, Ochain will not SB more than Aegis, it's one of Aegis's Signature traits.

Divine Emblem will suck still. Even doubling the potency of Holy won't make it viable for damage/enmity, even holy2.

The only thing remotely (potentially) good out of this update will be Cover enhancement, which could be a duration increase, accomplice effect (which wouldn't make sense, due to cover not kicking in if you steal their hate), or an enhanced damage absortion (blocks magic during that time as well).

Let's not be silly in speculation.

Raising hate cap won't change Pld.

The only thing that will "help pld" in future content is more support abilities (cures, decoy job ability, enhanced covers), or large shifts in damage output. I don't see Pld getting the latter.

It seemed like they were making it for what they did with WHM. Holy potency was greatly increased to the point where you could do 1k dmg or so. Would be decent for PLD considering its low cast time. Just a little something extra, nothing major of course.

Neo, when you mention hate cap, if they raised hate cap as a whole yes that would not help pld, but I still dont understand why they dont just give pld's increased hate.

I hate to bring up other games but have you ever played WoW? Hate has no cap, and any job that is a tank class can generate 200%+ more hate then other jobs. you still get tanks losing hate but every tank feels like a tank. I wish SE could just pay attention to mechanics in other successful franchises

Never played WoW. I supposed that would be a potential fix. However SE stated they were not going to up the hate cap, as it would break to much other stuff (i.e. too much work on their part). Potentially raising cap for Pld only may be effective, or decreasing enmity deterioration rate. However I suspect the same mechanics problems would arise.