FINAL FANTASY XI Job Adjustments Manifesto: Paladin

[Rorrick]

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.

[Aeonk]

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.

[Rorrick]

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.

[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? 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.

[Rorrick]

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?

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?

[Naix]

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

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.

[Lutschfactor]

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.

[Nightdew]

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 ^^

[Motenten]

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).

[Camate]

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.

We would like the enmity cap to be raised.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reduce the recast timer on Shield Bash.

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.

Increase the activation rate of shield blocks.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Add an enmity bonus to Cure.

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.

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

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.