FFXIV 3.0 : Heavensward - Expansion Information and Discussion

[Obsidian]

Fortunately tanking is about more than eHP. Everyone seems to mention this fact as if it's the only important aspect on the tanking aspect of pld vs. war. Yes, good, the implementation of the stances is basically equal, but in practice it just isn't. IB throws that way off (it heals remember), second wind adjusts it, heck even bloodbath does.

Oath is proactive mitigation defiance is reactive mitigation requiring input [of another player entirely]. It really is different in practice. There are healers who have nfc how to heal a warrior properly as a result of pld easy-mode.

So as I said, on paper it's the same. Not in practice.

I was only talking about Shield Oath and Defiance because apparently some people were unaware that one existed and is better than the other.

[Dammerung]

No they aren't. Both Inner Beast and Vengeance are more effective mitigation than Rampart and Sentinel.

Please don't speak while the adults are talking.

This just in: 30% is better mitigation than 40%.

Please don't speak while people who graduated elementary school math are talking. And if you're gonna come and say "well vengeance lasts longer lulz" then you don't understand how to use mitigation skills in this game. Which is quite evident anyway from the rest of your argument.

[Obsidian]

You should maybe spend less time throwing insults around when you have no idea what you're talking about.

Vengeance vs Sentinel:

15s/120s = 12.5% uptime * 30% mitigation = 3.75% effective mitigation
10s/180s = 5.6% uptime * 40* mitigation = 1.4% effective mitigation

In other words, Vengeance is worth more than twice what Sentinel is as far as mitigation is concerned. I would say Inner Beast is too obviously superior to even bother doing the math but since you seem to struggle with the obvious let's do it anyway:

Assuming it takes you roughly twenty seconds to build back to Infuriated:

6s/20s = 30% uptime * 20% mitigation = 6% effective mitigation
20s/90s = 22% uptime * 20% mitigation = 4.4% effective mitigation

Inner Beast is 30% more effective than Rampart before you consider that you're not riding any of these cooldowns, but the fact that both Inner Beast and Vengeance are available more frequently by orders of magnitude gives them the clear advantage regardless, and Vengeance increases your DPS to boot. But hey HERP DERP BIGGER NUMBER GOTTA BE BETTER.

[Dammerung]

I forgot that bosses aren't designed on an ability rotation with cooldown timings kept in mind as part of content design.

Though based on your attempted rebuttal, it seems you use abilities as soon as they are up. This is not how you play tank.

[Seravi Edalborez]

Inner Beast is 30% more effective than Rampart before you consider that you're not riding any of these cooldowns

And when you stop riding them your listed "effective mitigation" goes out the window a bit. In favor of PLD I might add, if we're just comparing one cooldown to one other cooldown.

Also becomes a slightly different story when you compare the whole cooldown suite instead of just each job's strongest 2 (not even mentioning that PLD's "shit that matters" includes Rampart AND Sentinel, vs WAR's Vengeance and I guess Thrill of Battle?).

[Prothescar]

don't ignore shield blocks on things that you can actually block, either. WAR can't do that. won't block every single attack, but it adds up over time

[Obsidian]

I forgot that bosses aren't designed on an ability rotation with cooldown timings kept in mind as part of content design.

Welcome to a page ago.

And when you stop riding them your listed "effective mitigation" goes out the window a bit. In favor of PLD I might add, if we're just comparing one cooldown to one other cooldown.

Also becomes a slightly different story when you compare the whole cooldown suite instead of just each job's strongest 2 (not even mentioning that PLD's "shit that matters" includes Rampart AND Sentinel, vs WAR's Vengeance and I guess Thrill of Battle?).

Out the window? Mostly. In favour of PLD? Unconvinced. You can't tell me that the only time you Inner Beast is when scripted damage is coming. But I can tell you pretty much the only time you use Rampart is when scripted damage is coming. Comparing the entire toolbox for both jobs isn't particularly compelling one way or the other; Rampart/Sentinel and Inner Beast/Vengeance are the ones that really matter, and between those I would still rather have the pair I can use more freqently. The rest is Bulwark and Thrill of Battle, and then Awareness/Convalescence/Foresight/Bloodbath which are all cross-classable and all worthless with the exception of Convalescence.

Even if you call them a wash, the plethora of issues surrounding Paladin hardly justify the mitigation parity between PLD and WAR and the extreme advantage WAR has in all other facets of combat.

don't ignore shield blocks on things that you can actually block, either. WAR can't do that. won't block every single attack, but it adds up over time

Shield blocks aren't a cooldown and where single hits are concerned blocks are irrelevant because you can't count on them to happen. This is a large part of what makes Bulwark worthless (the other part being its retarded cooldown).

[Foxer]

You should maybe spend less time throwing insults around when you have no idea what you're talking about.

Vengeance vs Sentinel:

15s/120s = 12.5% uptime * 30% mitigation = 3.75% effective mitigation
10s/180s = 5.6% uptime * 40* mitigation = 1.4% effective mitigation

In other words, Vengeance is worth more than twice what Sentinel is as far as mitigation is concerned. I would say Inner Beast is too obviously superior to even bother doing the math but since you seem to struggle with the obvious let's do it anyway:

Assuming it takes you roughly twenty seconds to build back to Infuriated:

6s/20s = 30% uptime * 20% mitigation = 6% effective mitigation
20s/90s = 22% uptime * 20% mitigation = 4.4% effective mitigation

Inner Beast is 30% more effective than Rampart before you consider that you're not riding any of these cooldowns, but the fact that both Inner Beast and Vengeance are available more frequently by orders of magnitude gives them the clear advantage regardless, and Vengeance increases your DPS to boot. But hey HERP DERP BIGGER NUMBER GOTTA BE BETTER.

Although your logic is right, boss fights in this game aren't designed to put out a steady stream of damage for it. You use these bigger cooldowns for certain attacks, so saying "over time, vengeance mitigates more damage than sentinel" would only really apply to a mob you tank for a long period of time while he's consistently letting out the same exact amount of damage over that said period of time. Let's face it, this isn't FFXI. That shit doesn't exist here. It's all about rotations, and your rotations are meant to mitigate their rotation.

I'm not defending any tank in particular, cause quite frankly, I think they're both boring as fuck in raids, but your logic is always applicable. It actually doesn't really apply to any worthwhile content in the game when you think about it.

You ain't wrong though!!

Edit: Just saw that last fucking post.

[Prothescar]

Shield blocks aren't a cooldown and where single hits are concerned blocks are irrelevant because you can't count on them to happen. This is a large part of what makes Bulwark worthless (the other part being its retarded cooldown).

no, blocks aren't cooldowns. but if you're going to be butthurt about pld somehow having less mitigation than WAR by a margin that makes PLD terrible compared to a heretofor unreleased and unknown job and WAR itself, then ignoring one of the biggest mechanics that a PLD has over a WAR in terms of mitigation over the course of a fight is retarded.

[Obsidian]

no, blocks aren't cooldowns. but if you're going to be butthurt about pld somehow having less mitigation than WAR by a margin that makes PLD terrible compared to a heretofor unreleased and unknown job and WAR itself, then ignoring one of the biggest mechanics that a PLD has over a WAR in terms of mitigation over the course of a fight is retarded.

We're bouncing back and forth here between ability rotations and effective mitigation. Does it matter in terms of effective mitigation? Yes (to the turn of a ~5% advantage over WAR on physical damage only after you consider everything else). Does it matter a lick in terms of ability rotations? Nope.

[Prothescar]

neither job is hurting for ability rotations, so I don't see your point. how do you plan to add variety to abilities whose sole purpose is to reduce damage? they're going to do the same thing regardless. PLD isn't hurting for mitigation across a fight nor is it hurting for mitigation on big tank killers. "effective mitigation" over a fight can't use the absolute maximum value of a cooldown's mitigation potential, because you don't use cooldowns that way. shield blocks, on the other hand, will happen when they happen. they will always fulfill their maximum potential due to being reliant on an average, and are not activated by the player. ergo, when discussing ability rotations, you're still discussing "effective mitigation", unless we want to put everything inside the vacuum of "no one would do this ever".

if you had anything to complain about, it would be the dps disparity between PLD and WAR when the mitigation disparity isn't large enough to justify it. or the lack of party utility that PLD affords compared to a WAR.

[Obsidian]

neither job is hurting for ability rotations, so I don't see your point. how do you plan to add variety to abilities whose sole purpose is to reduce damage? they're going to do the same thing regardless. PLD isn't hurting for mitigation across a fight nor is it hurting for mitigation on big tank killers. "effective mitigation" over a fight can't use the absolute maximum value of a cooldown's mitigation potential, because you don't use cooldowns that way. shield blocks, on the other hand, will happen when they happen. they will always fulfill their maximum potential due to being reliant on an average, and are not activated by the player.

if you had anything to complain about, it would be the dps disparity between PLD and WAR when the mitigation disparity isn't large enough to justify it.

Either you're not following along or you're just dumb. This whole cooldown tangent started with this gem:

lol, i remember hte ways when people were pretty much saying pld was only real tank, now everyone saying pld sucks. what ever.

PLD cooldowns are better than warrior.

Shield blocks have nothing to do with ability rotations. They do have to do with effective mitigation, but like I said five seconds ago, the conversation was about abilities, which still makes blocking irrelevant. I actually literally said in that fucking post that you don't ride cooldowns but the comparison still has merit because Inner Beast and Vengeance lend themselves much better to impulse use than Rampart or Sentinel.

Does PLD hurt for mitigation across a fight? No, so long as everything goes according to plan.
Does PLD hurt for mitigation on boss killers? No, so long as everything is going according to plan.
Do either of the above serve as justification for how pathetic PLD is at everything else? Absolutely not.
Is that what I've been saying from the beginning? Yes sir.

[Prothescar]

You yourself are (incorrectly) arguing that PLD's cooldowns are worse than WAR's. If you want to cite a post for being stupid and not pertaining to the argument, then maybe you shouldn't perpetuate that splinter of the argument with further idiocy. When comparing the two jobs, the only things that matter are:

A) Average mitigation over the course of a fight (NOT maximum or theoretical maximum, where you take abilities and directly compare recast times and durations with other abilities.)
B) Average DPS over the course of a fight
C) Party utility

PLD wins A, WAR wins B and C. Thus far, you've attempted to say that WAR wins A as well through faulty logic arguments and comparing the theoretical maximums of job A to job B while ignoring shield blocks because "they don't matter when comparing ability rotations blah blah blah". In reality, what doesn't matter is complaining about ability rotations when there's nothing wrong with either job's availability of defensive cooldowns. You will always, by one way or another, have an ability ready to mitigate what it needs to mitigate. Comparing the two based on one having more/less than the other is irrelevant. What always matters mathematically when comparing two things in this sort of game is the average. Now if you want to bitch and moan about job A being worse than job B (and job C), then try being more productive and logical in your thought processes.



How can we analyze the jobs as they currently are?

The average damage mitigated on large attacks by cooldowns combined with the average damage mitigated on physical autoattacks and blockable/parriable large attacks by shield blocks and parries is higher on PLD. While both WAR and PLD can parry, a WAR can not shield block. Therefor, the average damage mitigated by RNG mechanics is higher than WAR since a parry will not happen as often as the combined frequency of a shield block and/or a parry, in addition to a parry never being as strong as a shield block.

The average DPS of a WAR will be higher than a PLD. This isn't avoidable, a WAR has superior potency attacks, superior debuffs (without which a PLD's DPS is even lower), and superior DPS buffs. It's also less costly to change in and out of Defiance than it is to change between Oaths.

The party utility of a WAR is also superior to a PLD. Rage of Halone does not compare to Storm's Path. Minor benefits from Storm's Eye if there's a NIN in the party, and the PLD benefits from it as well whereas a PLD offers nothing of similar value to the WAR.




How can we fix it?

Finish off Riot Blade's combo, adding a third step that serves as a DPS combo. Potentially add a debuff to this for additional party utility. Additionally, some sort of support spell or ability would be necessary. Can't simply add a Storm's Path equivalent.

[Lucavi]

Oh man, all this shit is nostalgic.

The guts are fatter and there's more grey hairs around, but the venom is still as toxic as ever.

[Gulkeeva]

For a sec, i thought I was reading the PLD + WAR theorycrafting threads both merged together in one massive orgy but unfortunantly they are still over here
http://www.bluegartr.com/forums/155-...Theorycrafting

Why is all of this, even in the heavensward expansion thread >.>
Probably going to have to beat half of you with a watter bottle if you keep dragging it on O_o

[Obsidian]

You yourself are (incorrectly) arguing that PLD's cooldowns are worse than WAR's. If you want to cite a post for being stupid and not pertaining to the argument, then maybe you shouldn't perpetuate that splinter of the argument with further idiocy. When comparing the two jobs, the only things that matter are:

A) Average mitigation over the course of a fight (NOT maximum or theoretical maximum, where you take abilities and directly compare recast times and durations with other abilities.)
B) Average DPS over the course of a fight
C) Party utility

PLD wins A, WAR wins B and C. Thus far, you've attempted to say that WAR wins A as well through faulty logic arguments and comparing the theoretical maximums of job A to job B while ignoring shield blocks because "they don't matter when comparing ability rotations blah blah blah". In reality, what doesn't matter is complaining about ability rotations when there's nothing wrong with either job's availability of defensive cooldowns. You will always, by one way or another, have an ability ready to mitigate what it needs to mitigate. Comparing the two based on one having more/less than the other is irrelevant. What always matters mathematically when comparing two things in this sort of game is the average. Now if you want to bitch and moan about job A being worse than job B (and job C), then try being more productive and logical in your thought processes.

Average mitigation doesn't matter nearly as much as spike mitigation where WAR has a clear advantage because of Inner Beast, which is the whole point of the statement I originally made; that WAR is far more capable of "improvisation" than PLD, which makes its cooldowns "better." PLD's average mitigation on spike damage is not obviously superior. If you need an ability every 45 seconds things get pretty dicey for PLD; not so for WAR because of Inner Beast (assuming you always have Storm's Path up for the PLD's hits which isn't always possible). 40%/30% > 20%/20% > Convalescence + Awareness/20% > 20%/30% > 40%/20% > 20%/20%...

Both have an average of 23% over that time. But if you go one step further, the next round would be Convalescence + Awareness/30%, and now WAR has a clear lead. After that, 20%/20% > 40%/20%, WAR is still winning, and the longer it goes on, the farther ahead WAR gets. "But you can use Bulwark!" I can, yeah, but that's not a guaranteed block so it doesn't matter. It's serviceable on something like Bahamut's Claws where your odds of reducing at least one hit are pretty good, but for something like Resonance it can't be counted on. And all of that is predicated on Storm's Eye being up for every hit the PLD eats. Even if PLD's average was marginally higher than WAR, there are still occasions where you have nothing on PLD, and that will never happen to a WAR (unless you really fuck up), if for no other reason than because Infuriate exists. Even if you give PLD the slight advantage here, this is not justification for scoffing at the rest of PLD's glaring issues, as so many are inclined to do, and I think, on this point, you and I agree. This will be the last time (in this thread anyway) I touch on this, because it honestly doesn't matter whether we agree or disagree on the above.

How can we fix it?

Finish off Riot Blade's combo, adding a third step that serves as a DPS combo. Potentially add a debuff to this for additional party utility. Additionally, some sort of support spell or ability would be necessary. Can't simply add a Storm's Path equivalent.

I still think I would like to see Shield Swipe converted into the third step of a Riot Blade combo and given a different effect, because Pacification is useless 98% of the time. What the effect might be, I don't know. Perhaps a debuff that increases the party's critical hit rate on the enemy it's applied to? Just a generic vulnerability debuff that increases damage done? Alternatively, let Shield Swipe do conal damage and give it increased enmity to give PLD some more crowd control, and probably increase the TP cost to compensate. Either way, PLD obviously needs a third step to the Riot Blade combo, and that third step cannot have increased enmity on it. Maybe, just maybe, this third step could do magic damage instead of physical damage, and consume MP instead of TP, and be accessible from either Savage Blade or Riot Blade to give you the option of generating some threat or restoring MP to keep using the third step? Maybe this magical-based third step could even do AoE damage? Too far, I know.

If they aren't going to give PLD more crowd damage (at least buff Circle of Scorn to a decent potency, come on), or even if they do, I think Flash needs its enmity level boosted again. It sucks pulling a group of enemies and having to do nothing but spam Flash until your MP is gone, and then having to Riot Blade it back just to keep spending it. Riot Blade needs to restore at least enough MP to use Flash once per combo.

Oaths need to not kill combos, desperately. Bulwark's cooldown is retarded for what it does (it's only slightly better than Rampart as far as actual mitigation is concerned, but it's on the same timer as Rampart? Get real); either reduce the cooldown to 120 seconds or, ideally, make it 15 seconds of guaranteed blocks.

Tempered Will and Awareness both suck ass but I don't really know what to do about them. Tempered Will should just be a party-wide 10-20% damage reduction or something. Maybe on top of nullifying enemy crits, Awareness could boost the PLD's crit rate as well?

Cover is complete garbage and really ought to be taken back to the drawing board, but bare minimum, it shouldn't ignore damage reductions. I don't really have a good idea for alternate implementations, but something drastic has to be done with it. Let it suppress/transfer enmity generated by the person you use it on? Dunno. As for Foresight/Bloodbath, I don't really know; a WAR should field these, but at minimum Foresight should increase both defenses, not just physical.

For a sec, i thought I was reading the PLD + WAR theorycrafting threads both merged together in one massive orgy but unfortunantly they are still over here
http://www.bluegartr.com/forums/155-...Theorycrafting

Why is all of this, even in the heavensward expansion thread >.>
Probably going to have to beat half of you with a watter bottle if you keep dragging it on O_o

Both threads have been locked for over 6 months because their creators were inactive, and the discussions were supposed to move to the appropriate WAR/PLD threads in General, which are equally inactive and don't really lend themselves to this kind of conversation. Framed as a discussion about job balance/changes in Heavensward I think it's fair that it stays here, but whatever.

[Gulkeeva]

True, it "could" be discussion on balance/changes in heavensward... if they actually gave any information at all on any possible adjustments to classes, or even mentioned any adjustments outside of "being lv60". All I see, is 2.X PLD/War Discussion and hopes and dreams of changes, that SE has not even talked about in the slightest.

As seen here http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/122...ted-Interviews
from the accumulation of FFXIV fanfest info, producer letters and other media translations from SE all nicely sorted out.

Actually reading the 11 chapter biography and mechanics of inner workings of current pld and war mechanics wall of texts a bit that has been posted in the last 2 pages, it looks like a back n forth argument of "why current PLD / war mechanics / damage mitigation suck and what I theoretically think SE should do about it to fix it, or adjustments" (and probably why those 2 threads got locked looking at them a little)

As I said, that sections open for theory crafting and other "intensive pld and war discussion of current 2.0 mechanics, which the current debate entirely looks like reading it, as you can't even theoretically discuss anything of PLD/WAR changes, when none have even been slightly even hinted at class adjustments).

The only class changes mentioned for 3.0 so far from fanfest/producer letters/various japanese resources (maybe I missed something but I doubt it would be outside the DoW & DoM section)

*** Possible additions to 2.0 job/class system. (Letter LIVE XVII; 08/23/2014)
*** Additions to job system as the level cap increases. (Letter LIVE XVII; 08/23/2014)
*** Leviathan-Egi & Ramuh-Egi added to Summoner.
** Dev team to look into adding more stats to armor with the expansion.
** Skill Speed to take a larger role after the level cap is raised. (06/19/2014; Nova Crystallis)
** Addition of new abilities & traits with level increase (2-3 skills).

I'm surprised no one MS painting some horrid levi/ramuh egi and discussing how horrible current egi's are.

(anyway its like 3am hard to spell stuff)

[Obsidian]

True, it "could" be discussion on balance/changes in heavensward... if they actually gave any information at all on any possible adjustments to classes, or even mentioned any adjustments outside of "being lv60". All I see, is 2.X PLD/War Discussion and hopes and dreams of changes, that SE has not even talked about in the slightest.

Actually reading the 11 chapter biography and mechanics of inner workings of current pld and war mechanics wall of texts a bit that has been posted in the last 2 pages, it looks like a back n forth argument of "why current PLD / war mechanics / damage mitigation suck and what I theoretically think SE should do about it to fix it, or adjustments" (and probably why those 2 threads got locked looking at them a little)

As I said, that sections open for theory crafting and other "intensive pld and war discussion of current 2.0 mechanics, which the current debate entirely looks like reading it, as you can't even theoretically discuss anything of PLD/WAR changes, when none have even been slightly even hinted at class adjustments).

That's kind of the point though. It's ignorance that lets people think that PLD is "fine" when it isn't, and Square has been pretty clear so far that they're not inclined to buff anything without significant prodding from the playerbase. Dumping this in Advanced, where all of five people go and where threads with similar lines of conversation have already been locked, seems kind of asinine to me.

Heavensward is going to introduce a new tank, that new tank will in all likelihood displace one of the current tanks, and I made an argument for why it will probably be PLD that ends up being the odd man out, and proposed some changes that would probably arrive alongside Heavensward, to make PLD more valuable. I think that's related enough to fit under the umbrella of "Heavensward Expansion Information and Discussion," but I guess if you want this thread to die until more actual Heavensward information comes out you could kill two birds with one stone and split the conversation into General or Advanced where threads with similar content were already locked for similar reasons.

As long as the discussion goes where it goes organically, I think it should be fair game.

[Eldelphia]

I am looking forward to seeing whatever they are going to do with Astrologian. Sch and WHM are pretty well balanced.

[Dammerung]

That's kind of the point though. It's ignorance that lets people think that PLD is "fine" when it isn't, and Square has been pretty clear so far that they're not inclined to buff anything without significant prodding from the playerbase.

PLD is not anywhere close to how DRG was, nor is it in as bad a shape as SMN sustain currently is, yet you act like it is. Try playing the job in raids and knowing how it works, then come back here and post about balance. Currently, your "proof" is on the level of someone who is still fighting Caduceus in T1 of the first coil.

I will agree that PLD is garbage in 4man dungeons which is why I only go WAR for that, but it has better mitigation than WAR in raids. Talking about balance and including DRK in it is completely retarded since there is zero information out about DRK other than the visual teasers shown at fanfest.