FINAL FANTASY XI Job Adjustments Manifesto: Paladin

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.

Abyssea is the Colibri burn merit pt 2.0

PLD can be functional in abyssea, provided you know how to play the job to it's best and are willing to work on things like an empyrean or 2. You won't be 100% optimal (and elistists on forums will take nothing less. only 3 jobs exist at any given time after all) but you can certainly do things with the job.

Right now with Voidwatch, PLD does just fine in that regard too. And it's being expanded on in the near future (to hopefully contain gear that won't just be sidegrades.)

Right now PLD isn't 100% required anymore, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

It has not been required, or particularly useful for, anything in years, going well back into the ToAU era (and probably further back, but at least in earlier times it maintained the illusion of utility). No Paladin is going to outparse any damage dealer with two braincells to rub together without a large disparity in gear availability. As already stated, making Empyrean weapons prerequisites for being at all useful is not a solution.

As far as Voidwatch is concerned, I'd say the only place Paladin is legitimately useful if on the T4s, and only if you have Aegis and/or Ochain. without one or the other you can easily swap the Paladin out for a competent damage dealer and do just as well or better. This is the problem; Paladin excels at nothing. Even the one thing it's supposed to be champion of is done better by other jobs.

For years, every other job has evolved to become multifaceted while Paladin remains handcuffed to a role that does not, and has not for some time, have a place in the game.

People put wayyy too much faith in DD tanks. 90% of the DD's out there don't carry a scrap of dmg mitigation, both MDT or PDT. In fact, why not ask some members of your own LS just how many of them are carrying these sets on them at all times, and macro them in for every WS/spell the mob does? Until every DD plays like this, PLD will always have a role as the "safer" tank for HNM's. And that fact is even more blatant when a PLD is packing Ochain/Aegis.

Edit: Should probably make a point rather than just refute yours. I've been suggesting a DD output increase for PLD since some of my first posts on these forums. It's a better alternative than this "seperate hate cap" bullshit that's been going around these threads. Right now, the only thing available that's even considered a step in the right direction is Almace/Excalibur. I'd love to actually be able to DD on par with other pure DD jobs without requiring some "hard" gear to obtain, but until SE intervenes I'll make do with what I have.

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Originally Posted by Aeonk

People put wayyy too much faith in DD tanks. 90% of the DD's out there don't carry a scrap of dmg mitigation, both MDT or PDT. In fact, why not ask some members of your own LS just how many of them are carrying these sets on them at all times, and macro them in for every WS/spell the mob does?

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All the DDs I play with (myself included) carry MDT/PDT sets (and idle sets, low accuracy sets, regen sets, evasion sets, I carry a counter set for MNK, blah blah blah) and swap them in appropriately, but that's irrelevant. The point is to make Paladin useful regardless of the "skill" level of the players involved. Where competent players are involved, Paladin has no place in the game, and that's an issue. Everyone can get better at the game, but it's pretty hard to get worse. It may be safer (and without Aegis or Ochain this is debatable), but damage dealing tanks are already safe enough.

I don't really care how Square decides to go about buffing Paladin, but they seem hell-bent on keeping it the only pure defensive job in the game, which is why my initial post was curtailed to that side of the debate. Paladin's ingame description is, after all, "A warrior that, through long hours of training, acquired the ability to wield white magic." Where did the Warrior half of this job go?

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Originally Posted by Rorrick

"A warrior that, through long hours of training, acquired the ability to wield white magic." Where did the Warrior half of this job go?

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Not just the warrior half, how about the white magic half? PLD are by far the most ineffecient at healing in the game of jobs that receives cures natively. SE could be creative in this aspect but has neglected it too. Something like Cura/Cura2 that whms get, a low cost AOE cure spell that will heal more as you take more damage. Something like that sounds like it was MADE for pld lol.

actually rorrick they do at least look at the pld forums. i have been banned in the pld forums b4. so they look. but dont touch coz they really dont care to much and it shows. and its sad coz pld is a really good job.

I would suggest a boost in PLDs DPS too. Chatting about Aby, the real problem is how a MNK can tank safely, taking a lot of damage and possibly doing even more of it. A MNK can take down an NM without many difficulties being healed by 1-2 decent WHMs, and moreover he can do it in a fast way. All DMG mitigation gears & Enmity abilities are useless to him, since he's damaging the target like only a WAR could do.
Reality is that at the moment a PLD can average a decent MNK only by having both Almace and Ochain. And this is bad.
Outside Aby doesn't count so much, since aside a few exceptions like Novio, Defending Ring, Ridill and some Hachiryu pieces all old gear is worthless gear.
Please give a boost to PLD attack ^^, maybe some kind of JA that unbounds PLDs rage against a target in proportion to damage taken while using it ... I wouldn't dislike neither to get at lvl99 "Sancta" to make Divine Emblem worth to be used ^^

Was a JP post early this morning (about 12 hours ago now) for pld, so expect to get a proper translation soon.

Couple simple points made that I could pull from Google Translate:

No change in the hate cap.

No intention of adding more offensive power (even something as minor as the Fencer trait).

Howdy!

Sorry to make all of you paladins wait! While this might not cover every single question and request we have seen, the below is a hefty portion of responses toward your feedback.

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We would like the enmity cap to be raised.

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When considering the nature of the game, we would like to leave the enmity cap as it is currently and focus instead on specific adjustments for each job.

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Add an ability that has a high amount of enmity like Provoke.

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We are currently looking into adjustments that will make it possible for paladins to up the amount of enmity they gain in situations where party members’ enmity is steadily rising due to high damage output. However, as was shown in the concept, instead of an ability like Provoke that gives a spike in enmity, we are focusing more on the direction of adding elements that will allow of enmity gain as a part of defense and being able to maintain a high amount of enmity that has been accumulated.

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Add an ability like in Ballista where you can constantly hold a target’s attention for a set period of time.

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This seems like it would be a good stat to be granted during Invincible. We will look into it.

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It’s really rough trying to maintain the focus of enemies that have enmity reset abilities. Do you have anything planned for this?

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Though we haven’t decided on the specific effects and implementation method, we will be preparing some method to address this.

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Add an ability that absorbs a party/alliance member’s enmity.

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Though it doesn’t absorb enmity directly, Cover has an effect that is very close.

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Reduce the recast timer on Shield Bash.

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When we make adjustments to the merit point system we will look into making changes to the recast timer when applying merit points to Shield Bash.

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Increase the activation rate of shield blocks.

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In the next version update, we are planning to add an ability that will temporarily increase the activation of shield blocks as well as make is so no enmity is lost.

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Are you planning any kind of specialized mode change for shield defense?

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While it will require you to be under the effect of an ability, we are thinking of making a new ability similar to what you described that focuses on raising the defensive stats of your shield.

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We would like an increase in enmity effect when our shields activate.

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The concern here is that stats for shields with high block rates (like Ochain) would become too high. Since we would have to make balance adjustments such as raising the shield activation rate on other shields, we are currently not thinking about this.

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Make it possible to use Cover on alliance members as well.

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Since Cover was designed to only function with party members, it would be necessary to carefully look into the balance of battles if we expanded it to cover alliance members, so it is not something we can change without a lot of testing. This is same way we approach all abilities and spells for jobs.

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When using Cover, we would like the offset enmity to be given to the paladin.

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Thief’s Trick Attack ability already features a similar effect, so we’d rather they be used in this type of situation.

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Add an ability that makes it so an enemy’s AoE attack does not affect other party members when the paladin is the main target.

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While we will not be making it so AoE attacks are totally avoidable, we are looking into making it so that the effect of Sentinel can be spread to party members for a period of time to protect them.

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Add an enmity bonus to Cure.

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We’d like to look into if we could add something to merit points that would be like an enmity boosting version of Tranquil Heart.

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I’m pretty sure that Fencer should be for paladin…

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Paladin has a high amount of defense, so we are not thinking about adding a high amount of attack power on top of their defense currently.

Ouch town on that last one :\

(The other answers sound really interesting)

Just some observations from an outsider (whm main) the biggest issue I've noticed from plds isn't enmity control usually...it's the fact that where a dnc or nin or thf can flat out avoid any attacks they can't just take, pld lacks a similar ability, and they aren't usually any better at taking some attacks...can we maybe see something for pld that helps them either avoid more attacks or overall take less damage or something, so that they can survive the damage they take?

I hate stupid answers like "Oh HAI if you want to lose enmity then get a thf to collab u lulz" They seem to say it every single time.

I really don't think the devs play this game at a high level in any capacity.

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While this might not cover every single question

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I see what you did thar...

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Originally Posted by Bubeeky

Just some observations from an outsider (whm main) the biggest issue I've noticed from plds isn't enmity control usually...it's the fact that where a dnc or nin or thf can flat out avoid any attacks they can't just take, pld lacks a similar ability, and they aren't usually any better at taking some attacks...can we maybe see something for pld that helps them either avoid more attacks or overall take less damage or something, so that they can survive the damage they take?

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As someone else who isn't a PLD, this isn't the main problem. Paladins do lose some Enmity when hit but they get it back very quickly; the real issue is that melees and BLMs do so much damage now that they hit the hate cap very quickly and stay there. Without giving players some way to get rid of Cumulative Enmity or allowing PLDs to exceed the hate cap, boosting PLD Enmity gain is not going to help.

I'd like to know who comes up with some of these questions. Cause they obviously don't play the job or they should consider playing a different job. None of what is mentioned will fixes PLD or will help in any way.

This is more of what needs to change. Need to scroll down.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/th...-i-see-with-it

None of these points address the issue of damage generating too much enmity, making it frustratingly difficult to hold hate off of any heavy DD. Enmity formulas do not scale well into modern end game, particularly Abyssea. Worse yet, even if PLD is suddenly able to keep hate at a reasonable rate, so what? These days, any melee with shadows can be cure bombed and function as a proper tank for a large majority of fights. The difference between PLD/NIN and any other melee/NIN is marginal at best. There's very little that sets PLD apart in terms of taking damage. A PLD might die in 10 hits instead of 8, but that's hardly a noticeable difference. Meanwhile, NIN MNK THF and DNC all have means of avoiding damage all together, and damage that is unavoidable is no more avoidable on PLD. In short, taking no damage > taking some damage.

If PLD is going to be able to hold a place among the modern "tank", then they need to be able to gain and keep enmity for the large majority of a given fight, and they need to be able to consistently mitigate a substantial amount of damage, beyond once every 5 minutes, once every 2 hours, or through uncontrolled armor set procs, and without the use of a relic or empyrean shield.

they need to just make pld usable again. increase dmg enough that you can play pld without gimping your party. dnc has high curing/eva/dt- and subtle blow to keep it a decent job (if not needed). nin has huge eva+shadows+migawari. thf has the most eva and TH. so pld is only useful for VW or magic resist builds.

this means i'll never finish pld because when will i ever play it? i cant skill up shield or parry atm unless i go solo and why would i waste time doing that? and im definitely not wasting time farming seals or +2 items or go get the empy/relic shields.

so pld will stay a job used only by people who had it for 5+ years. so give us a migawari spell with recast/duration that allow you to full-time it. and we need to be able to self-skillchain and magic burst holy so we can dd. sam/dnc/blu have abilities to do this, it wont hurt to let pld.

-oh ya and mnk is a better face tank then us cuz of HP. pld is just lame atm

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Originally Posted by Septimus

As someone else who isn't a PLD, this isn't the main problem. Paladins do lose some Enmity when hit but they get it back very quickly; the real issue is that melees and BLMs do so much damage now that they hit the hate cap very quickly and stay there. Without giving players some way to get rid of Cumulative Enmity or allowing PLDs to exceed the hate cap, boosting PLD Enmity gain is not going to help.

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LALALA WE CAN'T HEAR YOU

correct me if i'm wrong.. but isn't pld the only job left that single wields a main hand weapon? i know beast can.. but there's no point to it... and war will never single wield an axe...

why SE.. why?

They don't actually parse anything or work with real math or real gameplay, they probably just say "oh well paladin takes significantly reduced damage so therefore they can't dish any out."

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Originally Posted by esoR

correct me if i'm wrong.. but isn't pld the only job left that single wields a main hand weapon? i know beast can.. but there's no point to it... and war will never single wield an axe...

why SE.. why?

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Because pld appently isn't a dd job.

It is most unfortunate that SE doesn't seem to know how to deal with these issues in a relevant matter. Shame on you SE, and shame on you community team for not pushing the devs a bit harder.

@ Coldbrand. I agree. Even a BST pet can steal hate just by melee alone. This is totally whack.



Perhaps if making PLD melee hits occasionally trigger some kind of enmity spike equivalent to a weapon skill without the damage, but just the enmity we would see better hate control.

Edit:
Cure IV doesn't even cut it anymore. The amount of HP we have we're just eating away MP keeping ourselves healed in Abyssea or outside Abyssea.

SE clearly does not play the same game we do.

Let's say for example I'm doing an NM with these jobs:
PLD, DNC, MNK, and WAR.
Very quickly into the fight, all four are going to be capped on hate. [Likely, the PLD last.]
Then the mob gets to swap targets over and over as we all take turns being at the top of the hate list.

Now...explain to me how any of the questions answered are going to help PLD not only maintain hate, but prevent other people from constantly capping hate.
Then explain to me why I'd want a PLD tanking instead of a job that can tank as well as do damage.

At current, PLD has very limited use, even in low man.
And stop trying to cover enmity issues up with THF.
THF does not help with the current enmity system, no matter how much you want it to.
Accomplice/Collab have too long of a recast timer to be useful in a fight -- and when used, it's only noticeable in a couple situations. When hate is capped on everyone and bouncing around, the person you take hate from will immediately get it back anyhow.
Trick Attack is nothing but a damage tool now. Again, with capped hate there's no real change when I TA + Rudra's someone. THF is not some master of enmity control, SE. Update your jobs or systems properly and stop using THF as an excuse not to.

I really hope SE gets a new staff member who actually plays this game to explain to them how things work in practice, and not just theory.

Also still upset that there's no Q&A for DNC yet. :<

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Originally Posted by Septimus

As someone else who isn't a PLD, this isn't the main problem. Paladins do lose some Enmity when hit but they get it back very quickly; the real issue is that melees and BLMs do so much damage now that they hit the hate cap very quickly and stay there. Without giving players some way to get rid of Cumulative Enmity or allowing PLDs to exceed the hate cap, boosting PLD Enmity gain is not going to help.

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not saying that this statment is conpletely false... but enmity douse says hi.

Ok I wasn't actually going to comment on this but after reading Camate's post I can't seem to resist. Its been a while since I've posted anything since I took a month long break from the game. But I had an idea on how to help paladin out.

Nothing in Camate's post seemed even remotely helpful to the situation my favorite job seems to have found itself in. Therefore I have thought about a new JA for paladin that would suit the job perfectly, in my opinion of course.

Holy Judgement:
Duration: 1~3 minutes
Recast time: 3~5 minutes
Effect: All actions taken by the Paladin while under the effect of Holy Judgement will see an increase in their base effect/damage and duration (excluding Enhancing Magic)
*Effect can be dispelled

Examples
*All curative spells will cure for double the base amount and increased enmity gain.
*Offensive Spells like holy and banish spells will do double their base damage and Flash will have a higher enmity spike. (I know someone is going to mention Divine Emblem's effect however, that effect only works for one cast and the recast timer is far to long to make it useful)
*Defensive actions such as Sentinel, rampart, and cover will see an increase in duration with reduced enmity loss.
*All offensive melee actions will see a boost in damage output, including weapon skills (similar to berserk but without the defense down).

This is my idea for an all encompassing JA for Paladin that should help it gain and maintain enmity, without going totally outside the bounds of how the job was designed. I know people are going shoot down some, if not all of my idea's and that's fine, but I just couldn't stomach the "non-solutions" that I was seeing in Camate's response.

Thank you, and have a nice day.

PLD just isnt good for abyssea how many people in this thread have killed a voidwatch NM without a PLD?

I killed a voidwatch NM with a pld... but it reset hate every other move so I didnt really do anything... id say being pointless counts the same as not even being there.

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Originally Posted by Kari

SE clearly does not play the same game we do.

Let's say for example I'm doing an NM with these jobs:
PLD, DNC, MNK, and WAR.
Very quickly into the fight, all four are going to be capped on hate. [Likely, the PLD last.]
Then the mob gets to swap targets over and over as we all take turns being at the top of the hate list.

Now...explain to me how any of the questions answered are going to help PLD not only maintain hate, but prevent other people from constantly capping hate.
Then explain to me why I'd want a PLD tanking instead of a job that can tank as well as do damage.

At current, PLD has very limited use, even in low man.
And stop trying to cover enmity issues up with THF.
THF does not help with the current enmity system, no matter how much you want it to.
Accomplice/Collab have too long of a recast timer to be useful in a fight -- and when used, it's only noticeable in a couple situations. When hate is capped on everyone and bouncing around, the person you take hate from will immediately get it back anyhow.
Trick Attack is nothing but a damage tool now. Again, with capped hate there's no real change when I TA + Rudra's someone. THF is not some master of enmity control, SE. Update your jobs or systems properly and stop using THF as an excuse not to.

I really hope SE gets a new staff member who actually plays this game to explain to them how things work in practice, and not just theory.

Also still upset that there's no Q&A for DNC yet. :<

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ok Keep in mind im not a pld so I may not know what im talking about but.... last i checked the problem above (in bold) was mostly a pld issue in abyssea.

Also I've been hearing that pld is very useful in voidwatch.... aka where end game currently is right now.

I'm not saying pld has 0 problems..... but maybe you all are being alittle harsh all the same.

Well for higher tier voidwatch NMs we just bring two PLDs and hate reset is not a problem then as one PLD will always have hate

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Originally Posted by Cahlum

Well for higher tier voidwatch NMs we just bring two PLDs and hate reset is not a problem then as one PLD will always have hate

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also this ^

I'm not pretending PLD doesn't have issues it does, everyone capping hate very quickly being the biggest problem but PLD is still very useful in endgame. I'd like PLD to get a sort of stanced JA like solace that stores enmity that they can then convert onto themselves in the event of a hate reset to regain hate. Razed Ruins won't be there forever.

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Originally Posted by Darkwizardzin

not saying that this statment is conpletely false... but enmity douse says hi.

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I'll remember that the next time I have too much hate on WAR.

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Oh.

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Originally Posted by Darkwizardzin

Also I've been hearing that pld is very useful in voidwatch.... aka where end game currently is right now.

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The thing is that's 1 event, and the only event PLD is "needed" at least currently. I'm of the assumption there will be more content like Voidwatch and PLD will come back into the light as a dedicated tank role is needed. Now another assumption I'm making is that SE will introduce easier content (similar difficulty scale of Abyssea and WoE for example) as not everyone who plays the game likes "hard" content. Easier content means PLD isn't needed as a Tank. So if that does happen and if that easier content is the majority of the "endgame" at 99 like it is now, then PLD will still be a 1 trick pony and that does not equate to a fixed job.

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Originally Posted by Septimus

I'll remember that the next time I have too much hate on WAR.

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Oh.

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WAR cares about hate? >.> My WAR/SAM Loves hate it means I get to kill a monster that much faster with Retaliation and the increased TP return for more Weapon Skills.
Edit: If the monster is something that can actually kill my WAR if I pull hate then you know what I do? I hold back, I turn around, I sit on TP, etc. There are lots of ways to keep X job from capping/recapping hate these methods were used in the old days I wonder if you remember those.

Thank you for the response and hard work, Camate! :) So far I love the majority of the things I have read on what is being planned for PLD. There are a few responses though that I'd like to talk about.

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Originally Posted by Camate

We are currently looking into adjustments that will make it possible for paladins to up the amount of enmity they gain in situations where party members’ enmity is steadily rising due to high damage output. However, as was shown in the concept, instead of an ability like Provoke that gives a spike in enmity, we are focusing more on the direction of adding elements that will allow of enmity gain as a part of defense and being able to maintain a high amount of enmity that has been accumulated.

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It's already quite easy to reach the hate cap to the point where the paladin and other damage dealers will be bouncing it back and forth. Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of being able to up my enmity in that certain situation but I'm not sure if it will get us anywhere. How about adding something to paladin that suppresses enmity gain on other players for a brief moment?

I'll use Synchronic Blitz from Voidwatch as an example. When we strike a highly vulnerable weakness on the Voidwatch NM we have all the damage dealers go in and do damage. When this happens all of the damage dealers are doing insane amounts of damage to the NM causing them to basically be at the hate cap. At this point in time is when it would be nice for paladin to be able to suppress the amount of enmity the damage dealers gain.

Just a thought...

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Originally Posted by Camate

Though it doesn’t absorb enmity directly, Cover has an effect that is very close.

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I've done some testing with Cover and it does seem to lower the enmity of the person you're covering, but I'm not sure if it works every time from what I've seen. (Maybe it's broken?)

I love what cover can do now, but do you think it would be possible to cover melee attacks like that of the Iron Giant, Hahava, and Celaeno? This would be great! :)

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Originally Posted by Camate

Since Cover was designed to only function with party members, it would be necessary to carefully look into the balance of battles if we expanded it to cover alliance members, so it is not something we can change without a lot of testing. This is same way we approach all abilities and spells for jobs.

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I know this will require your testing, but us paladins feel quite useless when we can't protect our other members when they're in dire need of it. :(

Allowing us to be able to cover anyone in our alliance would be one of the greatest things you could do to paladin. Pretty please with sugar on top, Camate? ;)

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Originally Posted by Zagen

WAR cares about hate? >.> My WAR/SAM Loves hate it means I get to kill a monster that much faster with Retaliation and the increased TP return for more Weapon Skills.
Edit: If the monster is something that can actually kill my WAR if I pull hate then you know what I do? I hold back, I turn around, I sit on TP, etc. There are lots of ways to keep X job from capping/recapping hate these methods were used in the old days I wonder if you remember those.

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So, instead of improving Paladins, we should instead do less damage? That solves all of the problems.

And don't try to condescend to me about the "old days". I spent years in a tree trying to get a dragon. I was in the first NA group that ever killed Tiamat. I was in the first group that ever fought Jailer of Love who found out that it invincible. I know all about the old days.

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Originally Posted by Kuraudo

It's already quite easy to reach the hate cap to the point where the paladin and other damage dealers will be bouncing it back and forth. Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of being able to up my enmity in that certain situation but I'm not sure if it will get us anywhere. How about adding something to paladin that suppresses enmity gain on other players for a brief moment?

I'll use Synchronic Blitz from Voidwatch as an example. When we strike a highly vulnerable weakness on the Voidwatch NM we have all the damage dealers go in and do damage. When this happens all of the damage dealers are doing insane amounts of damage to the NM causing them to basically be at the hate cap. At this point in time is when it would be nice for paladin to be able to suppress the amount of enmity the damage dealers gain.

Just a thought...

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I agree with this. Or, something else I was thinking, since enmity is divided into cumulative and volatile, why not make it so that all jobs accrue less cumulative enmity? Like, maybe half or less of what they used to? Back then, it was really hard to reach that cumulative enmity cap, which is why Paladin was always on top. It's difficult when say, a Samurai, runs in and does a solo Light skillchain for like 6k and that basically caps their hate. Back then, no one was doing 6k anything, which is why it wasn't so difficult to get hate back.

I mean, I understand that it's the Samurai's fault in this situation for doing that much damage and pulling off the tank, but at the same time, why bother getting better as a damage dealer if getting better means you're just going to get killed because the Paladin spent 5 minutes capping their enmity and the Samurai then takes 5 seconds to cap their's and then get killed? I really think the rate at which we cap cumulative enmity should be lowered. Like, way lowered. Just a thought anyway.

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Originally Posted by Darkwizardzin

ok Keep in mind im not a pld so I may not know what im talking about but.... last i checked the problem above (in bold) was mostly a pld issue in abyssea.

Also I've been hearing that pld is very useful in voidwatch.... aka where end game currently is right now.

I'm not saying pld has 0 problems..... but maybe you all are being alittle harsh all the same.

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This is true outside of Abyssea as well.
Maybe not for everyone, I suppose, but any situation where your DDs are fairly good.
A majority of the DDs in my LS have an Empyrean weapon, and are able to hate cap outside of Abyssea quite easily.
Abyssea makes it happen easier with less gear, but outside, a well geared DD is still going to have problems with the hate cap. It also means the PLD is going to have a harder time hitting hate cap themselves, even if it means they only get to bounce hate back and forth.

I'd really like to see a "stance" type skill for PLD that gives them some sort of "Absorb Enmity from nearby Alliance members" aura. Though, it might be a bit out of the question. If the aura was constant enough, it'd prevent DDs from hitting the absolute hate cap, and keep them just under it, while the PLD would be constantly hitting the top.
Hopefully SE does something.
I don't play PLD, and I probably won't anytime in the near future, but PLDs definitely need some help, and SE is proving they don't understand what PLD needs.