The VIT/STR debate for Paladin

[Seravi Edalborez]

WAR vs. PLD is a competition (just like every other class competes for their role). Some people believe WAR cannot reasonably compete against PLD against Things That Matter (a point I don't necessarily dispute), but if they think that, why would they be worried about gimping their WAR by not spending all their myth on it?

The fact that current top-tier content emphasizes damage mitigation (at which PLD wins) over damage output (at which WAR wins) does not mean the class system is broken or that WAR is hopeless. There's nothing wrong with having a content cycle where some classes temporarily do better than others. 1.0 ARC was awesome in Darkhold but sucked against Ifrit; everyone gets their time in the spotlight.

Flavor of the month job balance is stupid. "Throw more RNG/SAM/BLM/hatefreeSMNs" at it were pretty terrible eras imo because if you never got to bring anything else DPS-wise into the alliance unless you were truly pimped out (and never use it on the way to being pimped out). Now you just never get invited to the party (until we see how lenient Crystal Tower is but lets face it someone is gonna want to stack the "good" jobs there).

Worse: ok so now BRD sucks this rotation but say BLM is good now. Now I "have to" run all of the shit I did a million timed to gear up BRD, to gear up BLM from the beginning because I haven't spent any myth on it. And can't bring BRD to anything.

The semi-good news is that hey DL stuff generally applies to more than 1 job. But then myth (the Stuff That Matters) doesn't. So yeah.

Yeah this is exaggerating a bit, and yeah if you have a good FC and skill is good etc etc it matters less. But echoing "why bring meh when you can bring wow" and reminding that not everybody has a kickass FC, and is instead at the whims of shout parties.

[Northman]

I went with full VIT and thus far have not regret anything. I've tanked encounters with players that are of a higher gear level and still maintained aggro. If you stick to the rotations in a single target fight it shouldn't happen.

[Spider-Dan]

Flavor of the month job balance is stupid. "Throw more RNG/SAM/BLM/hatefreeSMNs" at it were pretty terrible eras imo because if you never got to bring anything else DPS-wise into the alliance unless you were truly pimped out (and never use it on the way to being pimped out). Now you just never get invited to the party (until we see how lenient Crystal Tower is but lets face it someone is gonna want to stack the "good" jobs there).

If you're holding out for an MMO in which all classes are exactly even and/or the job that is 1% better at [whatever content is popular this week] is not whored, I don't know what to tell you. Hopefully the secondary job releases will make people feel better about it.

The way I see it, if you only play one job on your character, you're probably going to have a poor experience anyway. That doesn't mean you can't have a main, but it does mean that some events can have mechanics that favor one class over another without the world ending. If Ramuh comes out and ranged attacks are just horrible in that fight, I'll live... even if everyone wants to do Ramuh all the time for a while.

If Coil (and maybe Titan) were implemented in 2.1 instead of 2.0, right now everyone who is saying that WAR is useless and garbage would be saying that about PLD instead.

The semi-good news is that hey DL stuff generally applies to more than 1 job. But then myth (the Stuff That Matters) doesn't. So yeah.

Accessories apply to all jobs, and as previously stated, myth accessories alone take 7 weeks of farming.

[Seravi Edalborez]

"Exactly even" is an unreal expectation. All I can really say is "look at PLD vs WAR post-Garuda" again. It doesn't have to be even, just not motorcycle vs wheelchair in a marathon.

[Lucavi]

Either you completely ignored the post I was responding to or you're just being dumb.

WAR vs. PLD is a competition (just like every other class competes for their role). Some people believe WAR cannot reasonably compete against PLD against Things That Matter (a point I don't necessarily dispute), but if they think that, why would they be worried about gimping their WAR by not spending all their myth on it?

The fact that current top-tier content emphasizes damage mitigation (at which PLD wins) over damage output (at which WAR wins) does not mean the class system is broken or that WAR is hopeless. There's nothing wrong with having a content cycle where some classes temporarily do better than others. 1.0 ARC was awesome in Darkhold but sucked against Ifrit; everyone gets their time in the spotlight.

Not going to get into a huge back and forth, but you've confirmed my thoughts: You don't mind when one Job grossly outperforms another not by virtue of gear choices or personal skill, but simply by design.

That's all I needed to hear. Nothing's changed.

@Seravi: Its been well-documented as to the gross differences in not only the types of mitigation (Pld pre-mitigating while war Post-mitigates) but also the threshold of damage incurred per second to begin to tip the balance between both forms of mitigation (keeping in mind that even at their core, Pld already has a significant advantage in HP healed before the fights even start).

Its not even a question as to whether or not future "hard" content is going to be based around Mobs hitting for a shit ton - that's the only way SE knows how to engage a fight - but whether or not they'll redesign the functional concepts of how War operates within the restrictive confines of the current end-game system (Mob hits for a metric ton: gear up to the point where you aren't getting 3-shot, then gear to allow your top DPS to perform maximum DPS as often as possible).

Edit: To get back on-topic: my 7.2k is enough through turn 2 to not be a complete liability in terms of getting 3-shot, so my current distribution of 22/vit 8/str will remain until HQing my relic, of which I'll switch to full-time 30 vit. Some of the brds that have our first pieces of Allagan are starting to creep up the hate list early on in fights, so I find myself needing that +1 relic upgrade faster than I originally thought.

[Raineer]

Not going to get into a huge back and forth, but you've confirmed my thoughts: You don't mind when one Job grossly outperforms another not by virtue of gear choices or personal skill, but simply by design.

That's all I needed to hear. Nothing's changed.

Gonna further this point a bit after days of FC debates (we're all trying to kill time while gathering, what else is there to do).

One of the worst arguments I think is this whole "well if the person playing warrior was good and knew how to use cooldowns, they'd be just as good as a paladin. That closes the gap, people are just bad and/or lazy".

Then why don't all these great players play the class which is designed better? Take that same 'perfect player', go play paladin, and own teh servers. One thing SE did do a decent job of is making leveling similar classes not terrible, by allowing shared/similar gear. This isn't WoW, where, even if I leveled two plate tanks (paladin/death knight), they both had to farm up their own gear. In here you can level both for a much lower investment. When SE swings the pendulum the other way, jump back.

[Carth]

One of the worst arguments I think is this whole "well if the person playing warrior was good and knew how to use cooldowns, they'd be just as good as a paladin. That closes the gap, people are just bad and/or lazy".

Another one I like is, "If they're skilled enough it shouldn't matter".

[Spider-Dan]

Not going to get into a huge back and forth, but you've confirmed my thoughts: You don't mind when one Job grossly outperforms another not by virtue of gear choices or personal skill, but simply by design.

More to the point: Not every class should be able to do every piece of content exactly as well as every other class. Like I just said, if Coil/Titan were implemented in 2.1 instead of 2.0, you'd be sitting here right now complaining that PLD is useless and serves no function in the game.

[Elcura]

More to the point: Not every class should be able to do every piece of content exactly as well as every other class.

Err, yes they should. This is exactly what balance is about. Not every class should do it in exactly the same way, but they should all perform as well as each other.

[Argantes]

This is becoming a terrible place to look for advice/information on STR vs VIT for Paladin btw.
Maybe make a new thread about this specific topic?

[Raineer]

This is becoming a terrible place to look for advice on STR vs VIT for Paladin btw.
Maybe make a new thread about this specific topic?

Go VIT until you've got enough to survive then go STR when your DPS outpace your hate then go VIT when you get to new content then go STR when your DPS outpaces your hate there...

Shit is situational, thread should have been 1 post. I think this is why it devolved into something else.

edit: proof? I basically picked up the game during 2.0 beta after a looong break from the start of 1.0. I came into all this with fresh eyes.

Start reading all the tank threads in order:
- "Y'all pussies if you aren't 30STR bc dps and rawr"
- 6 weeks pass
- "You're all STR? You must not be doing coil 4/5 eh?"

The decision about your STR/VIT even comes down to the quality of your healers. If they suck, you'll need VIT. If they're good but your DPS sucks? Then you might still need VIT because slow kills. Everyone good? Ok man up go STR. Don't need a thread for that.

[Elcura]

Go VIT until you've got enough to survive then go STR when your DPS outpace your hate then go VIT when you get to new content then go STR when your DPS outpaces your hate there...

Shit is situational, thread should have been 1 post. I think this is why it devolved into something else.

VIT/STR isn't really the main thing people talk about here now, I'd imagine it was gear choices and order to spend mythos on.

[Raineer]

VIT/STR isn't really the main thing people talk about here now, I'd imagine it was gear choices and order to spend mythos on.

That's why I'm here. It's a worthy topic. The tanking compendium thread has been quite good for that. It's helpful to hear people say "you should probably aim for tier X gear to clear Y", it is not helpful to hear people argue on stats which can vary by such great degrees based on the makeup of your FC.

[Lucavi]

Err, yes they should. This is exactly what balance is about. Not every class should do it in exactly the same way, but they should all perform as well as each other.

I don't know anymore. Like I said, nothing's changed over the years.

@Argantes: I apologize for the clutter. I'll see if I can get a mod to move some of it to a new thread.

[Elcura]

I don't know anymore. Like I said, nothing's changed over the years.

@Argantes: I apologize for the clutter. I'll see if I can get a mod to move some of it to a new thread.

I don't think ARR is doing it intentionally. At the very least I want to see what they do about WAR before deciding whether this team has their heads up their class balancing ass or not. Because not only could WAR use adjustments, but a lot of jobs could do with changes too. I know Yoshi has said we aren't using WAR right, but without telling us (or even implying) how WAR should be played at high level content this is just blowing smoke up our asses and changes need to be made.

Potentially the WAR/PLD debate could be rendered moot by ilvl80 gear present from CT and the things we think about WAR are based on having a 20 ilevel gap between tiers.

[Lucavi]

I was speaking more about SD's stupidity, but that works too.

[Elcura]

I was speaking more about SD's stupidity, but that works too.

I thought you were talking about SE/FF balance, cause it certainly applies to both lol

[Lucavi]

I thought you were talking about SE/FF balance, cause it certainly applies to both lol

True, true, but unlike with SE, I expected better from SD.

[Invictus]

Yet they balance the classes poorly and, on top of that, have the gall to tell the player-base who ROUTINELY makes a habit of breaking their shit to the point of embarrassment, that "oh, you're just doing it wrong," like anyone has any reason to trust what SE says in any way, shape, or form?

Get the fuck outta here.

Made my fucking day lol

I know Yoshi has said we aren't using WAR right, but without telling us (or even implying) how WAR should be played at high level content this is just blowing smoke up our asses and changes need to be made.

Yoshi's problem is that he's still using 1.0 WAR with a Crit build and self healing 1K+ Storm Cyclones on the test server.

[Spider-Dan]

Err, yes they should. This is exactly what balance is about. Not every class should do it in exactly the same way, but they should all perform as well as each other.

If you want every class to be as good as every other class for every type of content, then you're either asking for all content to be the same, or all classes to be the same. If you disagree, name any existing MMO that proves your point. (It bears mentioning that PLD is clearly NOT as good as WAR for a huge amount of content in this game, but because that content isn't the Coil, you don't care. And for the Nth time, the instant that a top-tier raid comes out where damage output is valued over damage mitigation, you'll be screaming that PLD is useless and broken, even if they make zero changes to PLD or WAR.)

Balance and variety are opposing forces. This is true for nearly every competitive video game to ever exist.