Ideas for Paladin Modification

[Cream_Soda]

Once the game moves out of aby pld will be again be a great tank, considering if the mobs can devastate other jobs via tp spam or spell spam.

I guess pld is the only job that can wear PDT and MDT gear

[Aeonk]

Alright, time to throw out an idea of my own.

Seeing as how the playerbase trend has shifted towards emphasis on DD'ing, it makes sense to continue that route. DD'ing has been just as much a factor in tanking as staying alive. That aspect became blatant with the introduction of Atonement (and the MNK tank in abyssea... although they were tanking things like salvage bosses in the past.)

So as a means of keeping PLD competant in it's own field, upping damage is the only realistic way to do it (besides the nerf bat.) Almace helps immensely with this, and while I personally think it's good enough to justify a PLD being in a party/alliance, others may not share the sentiment.

Anywho... on to the idea.
How about something along the lines of a job trait or ability that reduces weapon delay based on enmity? Something on par with NIN's tier of Dual Wield or MNK's Martial Arts traits.

But if that sounds overpowered, there could be a stipulation like if you fall below 50% or 75% HP, the trait is inactive. Said stipulation gives us incentive to use our magic (along with dmg reduction gear), rather than wait for the WHM to take notice and Cure V you. It also makes enmity spiking JA's more useful.

Just a thought.

[axlzero]

I've always thought it would be interesting and fun if PLD would get a Trait that would allow it to use Shields with Great Swords.
C'mon, Great Swords really don't have a main job.
Yes, yes, DRK and WAR use them.... yeah not really! DRK is all about Scythes, and they are vehement about it as people freak out when a PLD isn't "SWORD + BOARD or GTFO" (even when GS, club, and staff are already situationally useful.)
Giving PLDs the option of great sword, and letting them retain Shield could help give PLDs some DD + defensive options to employ in abyssea and in future areas. Traits, job ability and or Stances could be employed to balance this

-STANCES- (like NIN, WHM and SAM employ to their jobs) would be a great addition to PLD.
A way for PLD to Maximize Defense, Healing Magic, etc, while actually tanking and then a way for them to Maximize their offense to regain enmity when the mob is looking at the MNKs, i mean DDs.

Why not give PLD some Holy Destructive power? if a MNK can be the be all end all Tank + DD... may as well buff PLD up and give it some more relevance.

i kind of like this ideah how about bucklers become a arm or sholder wearing shield that can be used with two handed weapons on all jobs

[axlzero]

if you ask me i know the frustration of being a paladin and trying to keep hate and being really reliant on mp and buffs to keep hate. paladins should be able to use there shields as a weapon like a ninja dual weilding 2 katanas why not paladin dual weilding a one handed weapon and a shield. shields should do better damage then what shield bash puts out. over haul the base def of all shields to a higher number and make that def number also there attack also add a few shield base weapon skills that either dish out stat enfeebles to enemys or buffs the paladin and party. even better the shield adds a ws onto any ws you use with your main hand example you do attonment shield closes attonment with some kind of shield bashing ws that causes a burst if you do spirits within the shield follows up by healing the paladin with the energy taken if you savage blade the shield on landing will do savage uppercut and launch enemy into the air and stun them. then you can always get some kind of counterbash on every shield block

i have always said that the kinds of armor that paladin has had horrible stats they dont do enough and require massive macroing to i would like to see armor that is more versitile and offer a better assortment of stats or some way to merge stats of current armors in the game to make them into better suits. Paladins main problem is horrible weak base damage numbers on there swords that you can choose, not everyone can get a burtgang or an excaliubur at 75 swords needed to have a base attack of 44 minimal and most decent ones were in there 30's other then bluemage no job really uses swords and relys on them like pld the heavy espandon types had good damage but stats were lousy for tanking and delay was slow an espandon type sword with emnity and def stats or double attack attributes would of been nice back then. the other problem is clubs paladin was origonally meant to be a undead killer and club has the best effect against undead but there are no really decent maces or clubs for pld the ones that are there are really slow also paladin should be able to get hexa strike. as far as greatsword goes on pld well staff has higher combat power how about good staff weapons for pld i use to use a primate staff and staff fight solo with spirit taker i could last forever there is always the possiblity that staff tanking could come back on pld as long as the staff offers some good attack stats as well as dmg down basically if you ever capped out combat skills on pld prior to level cap raise you would find that sword shield club and staff were the highest and polearm and greatsword 2nd

as far as improveing ablities well sheild bash needs to be every 30 second and have more hit power and should have several types of bashes that can inflict anything from stun (shield bash) to paralize (shield crash) to sleep (shield head crush) or silence ( shield throat jab)

extra job ablities well someone sugested goad or something i like that paladin has always needed a voke that dont take mp but other then vokes paladin needs job abities that improve attack how about one that when used the next attacks blocked by shield are absorbed and turned into tp mp or hp or damage is built up and returned in the next ws pld does.

as far as always active traits well if pld aint gonna hit hard then hit often give pld triple attack and counterbash ability with shield
those are my suggestions other then more types of spells for pld

[Doombringer]

it's not a paladin problem.. it's a ffxi problem.

maybe if they gimped counter and retaliation hard, people would have less incentive to use dd's as tanks.. but even then.. why not use a ninja?

so now you either need mobs that spam aoe, or swing crazy fast to tear down shadows. if it spams aoe then why bother with a tank. your pt is still getting wrecked.

and if it swings crazy fast, that's just more opportunities for counter or retaliation to proc, so you better have gimped those already. you should probably also make sure the mob hits crazy hard so ONLY a pld can survive it. cuz if any job that outdmgs pld can hold hate and survive, that will be the better option.

it's just the way it is, you only need as much defense as you need to survive the fight, but you can never have enough offense. the mob could always die faster.

it's gotten so bad that i don't think pld can be made relevant without revamping the way the game works.. for example... change the way th works so it builds more steadily over time, but then raise or remove the cap on it. this would at least make an argument for drawing a battle out. NOT killing an nm asap. giving the thf as much time as possible to build as much th as possible. but then you also have to change the way loot drops. if a mob can only drop 1 of an item ANYWAY then you only need enough th to make it drop 1.. and again.. if the war, mnk, or nin can just SURVIVE while this is going on, while holding hate... then they are still competing for that spot..

that's just one random example, but the point is... it's not about making pld a tank.. it's about making HAVING a tank at all worthwhile. right now we don't generally need ANY defense centric job, and we'd only be hurting ourselves by using one.

[Blaksen]

Since Abyssea seems to be Paladin's main problem, I was thinking that adding new Atma designed to help the job DD tank in the zones would assist it greatly.

For example Atma of Monkey Grip: Allows the character to wield a 2 handed weapon with a shield. Along with stats somewhat comparable to high level atma like VV RR and Paladin would have a much better chance of keeping hate.

[Zagen]

Since Abyssea seems to be Paladin's main problem, I was thinking that adding new Atma designed to help the job DD tank in the zones would assist it greatly.

PLD was out dated as a tank in almost every event before Abyssea the difference back then a lot of people didn't want to risk it either due to fear or poor support for a nonPLD tank.

[Bilonn]

Since Abyssea seems to be Paladin's main problem, I was thinking that adding new Atma designed to help the job DD tank in the zones would assist it greatly.

For example Atma of Monkey Grip: Allows the character to wield a 2 handed weapon with a shield. Along with stats somewhat comparable to high level atma like VV RR and Paladin would have a much better chance of keeping hate.

Or instead of an atma, since this is to fix a specific job, make it a job trait of some kind. Give it to PLD at .. say Lvl 60, that a shield can be equipped along with a 2-h weapon, such as a polearm or greatsword. It shouldn't do very much, though it might take a tiny graphical tweak to draw the shield on the back of the hand while using 2-h weapon--maybe changing stances so the shield doesn't block the face of the char. But make a trait this way.

This won't fix the job, but it would be a unique addition for a pld--giving a little more to them...

[Greatguardian]

PLD was out dated as a tank in almost every event before Abyssea the difference back then a lot of people didn't want to risk it either due to fear or poor support for a nonPLD tank.

This.

The only thing that prevented PLD from being more widely obsolete pre-Abyssea was people. It was all in the mind. Groups that weren't afraid of change were using DD tanks years ahead of Abyssea.

[Aeonk]

This.

The only thing that prevented PLD from being more widely obsolete pre-Abyssea was people. It was all in the mind. Groups that weren't afraid of change were using DD tanks years ahead of Abyssea.

I wouldn't say that. I'd say it was that jobs were more well defined in whatever niche role they filled in prior endgame. But they were still capable of crossing the line per se.

Pre-Abyssea when you heard DRK what popped into your head? Zerging. It was what DRK was used for, and that was fine. A good DRK knew how to tank, and tools like Apoc generally help. But that was more the player than the job's specifications.

RDM tanking was rather popular on mobs that Atonement spam wasn't applicable on. And at the end of the day, it took a good RDM to tank. Not one that grew up as a Refresh/Haste bot.

I'm pretty sure there's a video floating around Youtube somewhere of a BLM/NIN tanking Byakko. Any job can be thrown into a tank role, provided the player knows how to tank and has adequate support to do it. PLD was just the default tank because they were easier to gear (homam, MDT, fire resist: done) and easier to play. And it was sufficient, it wasn't detrimental to have a PLD over another job. May not of been 100% optimal but it easily got the job done.


Now with abyssea, damage has spiked so high that it is quite literally the only hate tool that makes sense to use. Thus making the average turtle PLD not just obsolete, but incapable of tanking at all.