[Paladin Openers] [Main Tank & Off Tank] [Showcase & Discussion]

[FPZ]

PROCESS

• I've been testing a lot of openers lately whilst discussing my findings with other tanks, some of the openers I worked on have been meh and some have worked out quite nicely.
  
  
• After the last few days of testing I have narrowed it down to two types of opener for both off tank and main tank, which I believe are fairly strong in their foundation and grant flexibility in the tanking style you want to use.
  
  
• I am not pitching these as 'the best' but simply as openers with a strong foundation to later modify to your specific play-style / boss fight timings.

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THE OPENERS

[Main Tank Opener]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ic8DbXwRU-w

Holy Spirit > Shield Lob > Circle of Scorn > Fast Blade > Spirits Within > Savage Blade > Rage of Halone > Fast Blade > Riot Blade > Goring Blade > Requiscat > Holy Spirit > Holy Spirit > Holy Spirit > Holy Spirit > Holy Spirit > Fast Blade > Circle of Scorn > Riot Blade > Sword Oath > Fight or Flight > Goring Blade > Royal Authority Combo > Royal Authority Combo > Goring Blade Combo > Circle of Scorn > Fast Blade

• Great for raid & pug groups, generates nice aggro.
• Flexibility in if you want to enter Sword Oath for your full Fight or Flight duration for more damage, or remain in Shield Oath for more mitigation.
• Works well with and without Ninja in the group.
• If you do have a Ninja who uses a 6th GCD Trick Attack, you will hit 2 to 3 Holy Spirits in the Trick Attack window.
• Generates 100 Oath Bar.
• If you are confident in your aggro generation feel free to remove the Goring Blade Combo and go straight into Holy Spirits.

[Off Tank Opener: With Ninja 6th GCD Trick Attack]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GeIa7cJdfE

Royal Authority Combo > Goring Blade Combo > Requiscat > Holy Spirit > Spirits Within > Holy Spirit > Circle of Scorn > Holy Spirit > Holy Spirit > Holy Spirit > Fast Blade > Riot Blade > Fight or Flight > Goring Blade > Royal Authority Combo > Royal Authority Combo > Goring Blade Combo > Fast Blade

• Great for raid groups with a Ninja that Trick Attack on the 6th GCD.
• 4 Holy Spirits + Spirits Within + Circle of Scorn in the Trick Attack window.

[Off Tank Opener: No Ninja]

Goring Blade Combo > Requiscat > Holy Spirit > Spirits Within > Holy Spirit > Circle of Scorn > Holy Spirit > Holy Spirit > Holy Spirit > Fast Blade > Riot Blade > Fight or Flight > Goring Blade > Royal Authority Combo > Royal Authority Combo > Goring Blade Combo > Fast Blade

• Same rotation as With Ninja but without the Royal Authority combo.

[Off Tank Opener: Fight or Flight into Holy Spirit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmedhfXkg4U

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• Good if you need a lot of movement in the opener.
• Flows into requisecat, the final 2 seconds of your Fight or Flight buffing the ability before moving into Holy spirit spam.

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[KvotheCanvas]

What is the reason behind the timing of sword oath, why do you not sword oath for the holy spam in the begining?

[VargasVermillion]

What is the reason behind the timing of sword oath, why do you not sword oath for the holy spam in the begining?

oath gauge

[Supersomething]

Awesome, thanks for this.

[TheOneHikikomori]

Bit of a tidbit a friend of mine found I feel deserves a bit of a look at. I'm a ninja and we were doing a bit of testing.

What he ended up realizing was that (downtime willing) he could get a FoF buffed Goring Blade and Requiescat into each Trick Attack, if used exactly on CD. So it would ended up looking like this:

7s:Fight or Flight -> 3s:Holy Spirit -> Shield Lob -> Halone -> Goring -> Requiescat -> Spirit x5 -> Riot Blade -> Sword Oath -> Goring -> Authority x2 -> Riot Blade -> FoF -> Goring -> Authority x2 -> Goring -> Requiescat

Or alternatively Sac the first Holy Spirit and go into Sword Oath right before the first Riot Blade.
FoF would fall of right after the Requiescat. This allowed him to get an extra FoF in at the very beginning, as well as having FoF up for both Goring and Requiescat which also lined up with each Trick Attack. We found that hate was really close with the early Sword Oath swap, but a bit of a dps gain overall.

[Tegernako]

I'm leveling up PLD right now, so thank you for this! Much better then a image.