The Core of Paladin Mechanical Mundaneness

[Jpec07]

So I realized something about Paladins the other day while I was leveling my Warrior, and thought I'd bring it up for discussion.

To preface, this thread is not about needing more DPS, or needing more ways to generate enmity. This is a thread aimed at the core mechanics of Paladin gameplay, and the general boringness of the gameplay. Because even if our DPS is buffed, and even if our mitigation is fixed in 3.1 to put us "back at the top," the core mechanics of the class will likely remain unchanged, and those themselves are a big part of the problem.

Paladins are simple, sturdy tanks. The challenge in playing a Paladin comes in keeping enmity, especially on large groups, because of our comparatively low DPS. There is some complexity that can be found in managing your cooldowns, but so long as you keep one or two up at all times and save your big CDs for points where you need them, you'll be able to stay alive.

But...that's it. We have our Rage of Halone combo, we have our Goring Blade combo, and we have our Royal Authority combo, all of which are DPS boosters. Only Rage of Halone offers any kind of help to our mitigation, which is a -10% Str debuff. On one enemy. Against casting mobs and magic bosses, it's useless.

But both of the other tanking jobs' rotations have a very active role in their mitigation. For Warriors, you have Storm's Path, and every action that you take while in your defensive stance directly contributes to your mitigation, and leads up to Inner Beast, which is a huge part of your self healing. Dark Knights, too, have a very active role in mitigation, with Dark Arts empowering cooldowns and defensive abilities to very great effect.

In both of the other tanking jobs, the player has a very active role in their ability to mitigate incoming damage.

Paladins...don't.

Paladin mitigation comes, mostly, from passive absorption of white damage, and from our cooldown abilities--which are mostly shared with other classes. And when coupled with the fact that our rotational abilities are extremely generic and lackluster, we have a perfect recipe for what Paladins have been complaining about since before I started playing: mundaneness.

There isn't anything distinctive or special about Paladin gameplay. Paladins are the generic tank. We're "the tank with a shield." We're "approachable." We're "sturdy." And because of this, we are completely unremarkable.

But we can be "the tank without a shield" and also remarkable.

We can be "approachable" and also compelling.

We can be "sturdy" and also interactive.

There is a way for Paladins to be distinctive, and there is a way for Paladins to be special, and I think a lot of it relies on Square Enix realizing Paladin identity, and building the job out from that. But I think that is best saved for another thread, which is best saved for another night.

What are your thoughts on the matter? Do you agree with my assessment of why Paladins feel mundane, especially in light of other tanks? Am I completely missing the mark?

[Pots_Talos]

You're right, but isn't Paladin supposed to play this way? Easy and accessible.

[Jpec07]

You're right, but isn't Paladin supposed to play this way? Easy and accessible.

Well that's well and good, but you can do easy and accessible without boring and mundane. There are ways to have compelling mechanics that are easy to understand. Every other tank has some action sequence that affects their mitigation, while Paladins just have three DPS combos and a bunch of Defensive CDs. I've got another thread stewing on this, but I really feel like the design of Paladins is halfhearted due to a lack of vision on the part of the designers. They don't know what they want Paladins to be, and so in gameplay, Paladins turn out to be nothing special.

I also think that having a compelling, relevant storyline would do wonders to make the class compelling, even with its existing mechanics, but there's no way to say for sure.

[TheLastRaven]

Honestly and I've played all tanks i'm even about to hit 60 on my DRK. Paladin is my favorite tank and is actually the funnest to play for me. A good part of it comes from them having my favorite set of weapons the sword and shield. I like the idea of being the person who is supposed to be protector of the party. I don't think they are mundane they are just a more basic class. This can be changed through more active abilities in combat. But maybe while damage might be an issue if we are supposed to be a more support tank why not give us more support tools? Divine Veil was a good start but why not give us a party wide damage mitigation? Something that could be applied maybe after you take enough hits gives the party members a 5% dmg reduction.

Maybe have it so you have to keep it up through aggro combos and it doesn't have to be party wide. I could be an aura I saw people talking about an aura in the threads already. These auras could again be based on combos or usage of pre-existing abilities. We could tie them in with the oaths you have shield oath on? 5% damage reduction around you or party wide. Sword oath? give that 50 potency to the party or as an aura again. Cover could be better too if it allows you to take physical damage in place of an ally why not give it a 15% magic damage reduction too?

These are all Ideas, it's up to SE to figure out what works best. You have some valid points but some I do not agree on. We should be more unique but I do not think our class is mundane. Anyways hope that made sense.

[Ultimatecalibur]

One thing that is often forgotten is that the Paladin is the King of Interruption: Paladins have 3 different interrupts, one of which (Pacification) no other class/job has access to. This is actually supposed to be the active part of their mitigation.

The biggest problem is that post-2.0 interruption needs have been decreased to avoid requiring that Paladins/Bards be in parties for content.

[Brannigan]

one of which (Pacification) no other class/job has access to

This is why pacification will never be useful in hard content.

I really feel like the design of Paladins is halfhearted due to a lack of vision on the part of the designers

I think this is accurate. The paladin design meeting probably took 10 minutes.

"Well, a tank needs mitigation and aggro; FF paladins have Cover and I guess Invincible and Spirits Within. Oh, we should probably give provoke to them."

Then you get

"well let's see how we can make [war/drk] different from paladin"

For what it's worth, the devs did actually try to push paladin into more of a support specialization with bringing back Holy Succor/Clemency and Divine Veil, butttttt we're gonna need a bit more of a revamp than that.

[ArdorGrey]

They gave pld a lot of interesting support abilities and 3 full combo rotations now. I think they need some tuning but honestly I find it a lot more enjoyable than drk, which just feels like an edgey pld reskin with an mp management mechanic slathered over it and sprinkled with hints of warrior to make it look different.

It's nowhere near as fun as warrior, but after I've been bashing my face against Savage for hours it's fun to play not-warrior, and most of my fc doesn't have tanks leveled so pld is my preferred not-warrior but still a tank. It's fine that it's more accessible than the other two and doesn't have active mitigation. and tbh, you could argue that shelltron, which everyone hates, IS supposed to be their active mitigation skill. Everyone is too busy complaining that it doesn't help against magic to notice that though)

Yes pld needs tweaks and (small) buffs. No it does not need to be restructured with ogcd stance dancing, stack mechanics, or more active mitigation. Not that you said all of that, but the stacks and ogcd stances are extremely popular and terrible ideas that are being clamored for.

[MrTherm]

There is nothing wrong with PLD being so mundane. Not everyone plays on the same field in terms of skill, attention span, time to play, and other various factors. Yes, PLD is mundane. It fits perfectly for a lot of other players. I rather enjoy it for learning how to main tank and leading my raids. I can spend most of the time focusing on the fight itself and mechanics to learn wtf is going on and not worry about "omg am i on the side, did my bloodletter proc, do i need to use swaftcast to hit it with holmgang..." err... yea. I do have some attention span issues and PLD works great for me.

TL;DR = Maybe the job it to mundane for you, but maybe it works great for having some diversity for other people. Don't like mundane? Try something else.

[Khalithar]

The class could definitely use some more depth to it and while I don't want to have the same mp management system that drk's get, in boss fights there are few reasons to ever use your mp, if my healers are good I never need to use my mp at all outside of a flash or two at the beginning. Maybe an oGCD attack utilizes MP or one that provides more utility on the gcd?

Random idea as an example: Holy themed smite attack, 15-20% of base mp, single target, potency 200-250, increases damage taken by the target by 5%, cooldown 18 seconds, duration 20 seconds. Maybe make it not stack with disembowel/storm's eye/ballad? A utility move that makes pld have to use their MP but it's not about MP management it's about maintaining your debuffs while making sure you have the ability to hit that debuff when you have to reapply it, a well timed riot blade/sheltron takes care of that in most cases. There, a way to keep pld approachable while adding something to it's utility while also making it use it's largely underutilized MP without making it the same as drk.

[Duelle]

As someone who doesn't enjoy WAR and was meh about DRK, I like PLD's straightforward design. What the OP chooses to call mundaneness. It's the closest we have to a traditional MMO tank without the arbitrary BS for the sake of being/looking different. You keep aggro with attacks. You have cooldowns for emergencies.

It may suffer on the utility end because the devs chose to make DPS and utility defining aspects of each tank job (a mistake in my book), but that just means tweaks are a possibility for PLD, not a change in design.