I'm beginning to wonder if the development team is even aware that the Paladin sub-forum exists. If they are, they must not care. Paladin, at this point, is probably one of the least useful jobs in the game, and we receive the least amount of communication from Camate and the other community reps.
Personal grievances aside, the Manifesto's plan for Paladin does nothing to address the job's inability to contribute anything to any situation (barring precious few scenarios where the MDT from Aegis comes in handy, but requiring an Aegis or Ochain is obviously an unacceptable solution).
So, with that said, let's have a look at the vision for the job and example adjustments and see if we can't get Camate or one of his friends to make an appearance and set our minds at ease. Because we all know, Paladin is the best dressed class in the game.
- Vision
We respect the unselfish and bold nature of the paladin, so we plan on further developing their ability to maintain control of battles and keeping others out of harm's way, if only temporarily.
What abilities do the development team see as helping Paladin to control a battle? Prior to the Cover adjustment, it had Flash, a spell on a 45 second cooldown, Shield Bash, an ability of a five minute cooldown whose primary purpose is stun, not enmity generation, and Sentinel and Rampart, two more abilities on five minute cooldowns whose primary uses are defensive, and whose enmity gains are marginal and temporary to begin with. Divine Emblem is a ten minute recast. I think that's all I really need to say about it. None of these even approach being enough to balance out the enmity gain from raw damage that most jobs do.
Additionally, I think this is the right place to put my observation. Paladin is not needed to keep others out of harm's way. Nearly every other job in the game has some defensive mechanism by which they null damage. Thief, Ninja and Dancer all have exceptionally high evasion, Monk has Counterstance, Samurai, and any other two-handed damage dealer, has Seigan and Third Eye, and everyone has the capacity to set their support job as Ninja to gain access to Utsusemi. Also consider that all the above have significantly shorter cooldowns and significantly longer durations than any of Paladin's tools. Theoretically, Paladin's Shield is a great defensive tool. In practice, outside of Ochain (and Aegis to a lesser extent) the rate at which we block is substantially lower than the rate at which most of the above methods null damage completely. We also have the misfortune of still being hit, and thus being afflicted with whatever nasty additional effect the enemy has. You may cite the defense stat, but we all know that's just a joke.
From where I stand, there is a clear divide in the path of the evolution of Paladin when compared to any other job. Where other jobs have developed methods to mitigate or void damage to compliment their offensive capabilities, Paladin stands alone as the single job that has continued to "grow" (I use that term loosely with regards to Paladin) in a purely defensive capacity. The single legitimately offensive tool it gained through nine years of updates and adjustments, Atonement, has been rendered impotent by the rate at which enmity decays and by the magic resistance of most current endgame enemies, as well as made irrelevant by the staggering weaponskill damage most jobs are capable of, inside or outside Abyssea. Paladin, too, has access to a devastating weaponskill, but requiring an Empyrean weapon in order to be passably effective is not an acceptable solution. Sword weaponskill have always been lacking when compared to any other weapon class.
In short, Paladin does not have dominion over the singular role it has been groomed to fill.
With all that being said, let's have a look at the example adjustments.
- Example Adjustments Adding a new ability that reduces the amount of damage taken by a party member for one hit.
I don't really understand this. It almost feels like the development team is laughing at us by acknowledging the fact that Paladin never has the enemy's attention, and is reducing us to backline buffers. And one hit? At least give it a timed duration. Given the precedent, I assume this would have a five to ten minute cooldown? Waits that long and durations that brief are just impractical, and that goes for every ability Paladin has or will receive. The Cover tweak was a (small) step in the right direction (increased utility and duration, with a reasonable cooldown), although I would still like to see Cover made a job trait.
- Adding a new ability that slows enmity reduction.
This is potentially very useful, but I see two obstacles. First, you've listed it as a job ability, not a trait. This worries me as it would likely succumb to the short-duration-and-unbearably-long-cooldown sickness that plagues Paladin. I would much rather see it as a job trait, so Paladin can maintain some level of effectiveness despite the disturbing frequency with which I find the Amnesia icon at the top of my screen.
The second is that I fear this would be an incredibly small reduction (as SE has been wont to do in the past), ultimately having no impact. It needs to be a substantial decrease in enmity decay to combat the rapid enmity gain of damage dealing jobs.
I would personally like to see some abilities and traits that suppress the enmity gain of party members, or decrease the damage done to the Paladin while they hold the enemy's attention. Perhaps an ability or trait that somehow increases the damage Paladin does relative to their enmity levels (in other words, applying the Atonement mechanic in a much broader way). Paladin is all about maintaining the enemy's attention. Please, give us the tools to do so.
Of course, nothing you do will matter unless content is introduced that actually involves some risk for Paladin to mitigate. As things stand, current endgame is all reward, no risk.