Paladin - Helping to return it to top tank

[LeaderofAtlantis]

I have a few ideas for Job Traits and Abilities, but first, my brother made a suggestion that made a bit of sense and since we share an account, I'll post it as well. Paladin should get a job trait that allows for it's enmity to either cap higher or decay at a reduced rate so that it isn't so easy for other jobs to leap frog over it when none of its hate grabbing abilities are ready for reuse.

Now, as for my ideas...

(JA) Intercession - Cleanses an ally of enmity. Duration: Instant Recast: 5 minutes

(JA) Kenosis - Takes remaining MP and applies it to a damage reduction shield. (Example: 50% of max MP remaining turns into a -25% damage reduction shield.) Duration: 1 Minute Recast: 5 Minutes

(JT) Stewardship - Defense is enhanced in proportion to enmity.

Ok this one takes a little bit of explaining. Libra gives us percentages of enmity levels. SO, if a Paladin is at 100% enmity, it would get a 10% Defense bonus. If the cap for Paladin were increased to say, 150%, it would be 15%.

(JT) Epiphany - Occasionally reduces damage of special attacks or magic previously used by the current battle target. Chance of activating: 5%

With this trait, monsters who like to use the same attack 3 times in a row would no longer necessarily destroy a Paladin's HP with it (Off the top of my head, like Despot with Panzerfaust).

Been a bit bored late nights after work (I work the graveyard shift and aside from drinking, playing games is all there is at 4am in my town), so came up with some ideas for various jobs. Paladin is a job I played because my friends liked me as a tank on THF/WAR (which does work with a good BRD and Mambo x2 on things) and thought I'd be good as a Paladin. Started it up thinking I'd get bored with it and I have found that while it still isn't my favorite job, I do enjoy the challenge of keeping monsters away from attacking others.

[Greatguardian]

It's 6:30 am and I'm about to head to bed so I can't fully respond to everything on here. I just thought I'd mention that Libra doesn't work the way you seem to think it works. Enmity values are measure in units from 0-20,000. When Libra is used, it looks at every party member and determines who has the most Enmity on the target monster. That person's Enmity level, whether it is 10 or 10,000, is designated 100%. Then everyone else's Enmity values are determined based on their relationship to that 100% value.

E.g.: In a party of 4, you have Player A with 10,000 Enmity, B with 5,000 Enmity, C with 6,000 Enmity, and D with 3,000 Enmity. Libra would check and see that Player A has the most Enmity at 10,000, and marks that as 100%. It would then report player B as having 50% Enmity, player C as having 60% Enmity, and D as having 30% Enmity.

Alternatively, in a party of 4, you have Player A with 20,000 Enmity, B with 10,000 Enmity, C with 12,000 Enmity, and D with 3,000 Enmity. Libra would check and see that Player A has the most Enmity at 20,000, and marks that as 100%. It would then report player B as having 50% Enmity, player C as having 60% Enmity, and D as having 30% Enmity.

In these two cases, the player's Enmity levels are drastically different, but Libra would report the same thing both times.

With that said, I really don't think PLD needs any sort of Defensive or Enmity-related fix. They have plenty of tools for hate, they have plenty of tools for damage mitigation. The only reasons they don't stand up to Mnks and Nins are 1) They don't have enough Red/Blue/Grellow procs on their own to be a valuable unit in Abyssea, and 2) They don't deal as much damage as Mnk or Nin. It's mainly the procs though. My buddy's Almace PLD isn't much weaker than a Blade: Hi Nin, it's just using up space when we need procs more than additional damage/tanking/whatever.

[LeaderofAtlantis]

Huh, I was only going by what I had read and I hadn't actually seen Libra used... guess I should have done slightly more research, so thank you for your clarification.

On your 2nd point, 90% or more of the game is not Abyssea related and I hope they start to move away from easy mode Final Fantasy XI a bit for the final 9 levels. The damage reduction ideas were more for when a WHM might be low on MP and a PLD needs to survive a bit longer while they recover some. As a Galka, my MP pool won't keep me alive with cures alone in some cases, especially if an enemy uses a devastating attack like say, 10,000 Needles. But removing my MP to straight reduce damage would keep me alive a bit longer.

As for enmity, have you ever tried to hold hate against fully hastened Monk? It can be done, but it isn't easy without the assistance of others sometimes. With the damage output of some jobs now, especially with the Empyrean Weaponskills, it doesn't take much effort for other jobs to meet Paladins at the top of the damage ladder.

The idea of a Paladin is supposed to be that it takes less damage and the trade off for that is that they deal less as well.

[Greatguardian]

I have, because I am a Verethragna Mnk as well. A good friend of mine is an Almace PLD, and any time we both end up on the same mob we both have capped hate after a single WS. My hate isn't any higher than his, and vice versa. The monster just turns towards whoever acted on it most recently.

I mean, he could try to absorb my Enmity or something of the sort, but I would just cap it again within 10 seconds. Likewise, I can close an Empyrean Light SC off of him for 14k damage and the mob will still look over at him when he swings his sword because his hate is capped too.

Honestly, my biggest pet peev with PLD at the moment is its inability to wear Bullwhip OR Twilight belt. I believe it's the only melee in the game that can't wear either one (WHM BLM SMN SCH being the other 4 total jobs who can't). It makes capping Haste a pain in the butt without sacrificing other stats.

Every other job in the game has had to break out from its original, 2002 role and adapt themselves to the changing environment of the game. For some reason, many PLDs just don't want to do this and only make PDT/VIT swords and other such nonsense. I will never understand that. It's not a bad job, it's just second or third tier when you have options.

[Aeonk]

I have, because I am a Verethragna Mnk as well. A good friend of mine is an Almace PLD, and any time we both end up on the same mob we both have capped hate after a single WS. My hate isn't any higher than his, and vice versa. The monster just turns towards whoever acted on it most recently.

I mean, he could try to absorb my Enmity or something of the sort, but I would just cap it again within 10 seconds. Likewise, I can close an Empyrean Light SC off of him for 14k damage and the mob will still look over at him when he swings his sword because his hate is capped too.

Honestly, my biggest pet peev with PLD at the moment is its inability to wear Bullwhip OR Twilight belt. I believe it's the only melee in the game that can't wear either one (WHM BLM SMN SCH being the other 4 total jobs who can't). It makes capping Haste a pain in the butt without sacrificing other stats.

Every other job in the game has had to break out from its original, 2002 role and adapt themselves to the changing environment of the game. For some reason, many PLDs just don't want to do this and only make PDT/VIT swords and other such nonsense. I will never understand that. It's not a bad job, it's just second or third tier when you have options.

Finally... someone who gets it. And kudo's to your almace PLD friend.

[LeaderofAtlantis]

I think trying to turn PLD into just another melee is redundant though. There already is MNK, DRG, SAM, WAR, and DRK. Then you can toss a BLU and RNG in even if you just want to Zerg things (not that a RNG will add a ton with faster DD's going at it).

My main point is that a PLD should be able to hold hate way more steadily than they do. That should be the point of the job is to take the damage so others don't have to. VIT should also be fixed to have a much stronger relationship to damage reduction just like STR affects damage dealing abilities.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

Complainer PLDs complaining.
It's still the toughest tank on Siren.

[Anela]

I may not have played PLD as extensively as many of those posting in this portion of the Forum but here's my 2 cents.
Pre cap raise, (75 was lvl cap) I took pride in being able to hold the hate, even without all the best PLD gear, in just about every party I tanked. I felt sorry for the occasional RNG or SAM that stole it from me as they usually died quickly.

I was as excited as the rest to see the cap lifted. *Phalanx FTW!!* I eagerly looked forward to the new JAs, Skills, etc. Then, as the effect of the various changes to the other jobs added up, it became harder and harder to keep the hate in parties. It got to the point where I have basically given up on trying to be a traditional tank.

Now, I am sure that part of it is due to job experience. (As I said, I am sure many posting here have much more experience at the job than I.) But I also feel that the job DOES need "help". I don't have any viable suggestions to make, but what I see here so far seem to be on the right track. I look forward to what may come of this.

[LeaderofAtlantis]

2 changes I'd like to see made to Cover:

1) Use the programming that guides the "Draw-In" ability of many monsters in the game to cause us to warp right in front of someone we want to cover.

2) Make it so that during this time, the person we are covering has any enmity being produced by their actions, count towards us instead of them... or at the very least, a percentage of that enmity.

[Greatguardian]

PLD still has plenty of things which distinguish it from "Every other melee", just as each of those jobs have distinguishing characteristics of their own. The mechanics may be similar, but no one can say that DRG and MNK are the same job; they're not.

Giving players access to short-range teleportation mechanics is beyond broken, I highly doubt that will ever be considered by the Devs. You can start tacking on whatever arbitrary restrictions you want onto it but someone, somewhere will find ways to abuse it and completely ransack Mob AI.

Paladin doesn't need to be "The one and only meat shield" to be useful. In fact, it's because so many players refuse to let go of that ancient ideology that the PLD job is looked down on by everyone these days. This isn't something Abyssea caused either. As players got better at the game, people realized that it really isn't that hard for any melee to tank any monster. DDs were out buying PDT and MDT sets, Whms were becoming more efficient, Bards and Corsairs were becoming more common in Endgame shells as people leveled more jobs.

The fact of the matter is, even a COR could tank things like Khimaira back at the 75 cap. PLD was never a special snowflake in that regard, and it doesn't need to be. It's a top-class sword user with EX weaponskill access, extreme defensive and restorative buffs, and a moderately large spread of weapon access. I'm not advocating the equally ass-backwards "PLD with Greatsword" campaign, because that does significantly less damage than dual swords and doesn't do anything at all to solve Pld's problems. But I think people need to realize that the problem is NOT with the Paladin job, but with Paladins who refuse to bring the job into 2011.

I wouldn't want to invite Warriors to my party either if 90% of the community refused to use anything but dual Axes and made thread after thread on the forums asking for Axe buffs instead of using a Great Axe.