Ideas for Paladin Modification

[Judge]

You want to help the job w/o making other jobs suffer too much right?

What if they added a small adjustment to cover?

Cover could also reduce enmity of all party members by 30%(PLD unaffected)Everyone could still perform their job and a 3 minute timer isn't too bad in this case. PLD could tank effectively and those DD's don't have to worry about pulling hate as often. would also offset PLD not having its own voke.. not that voke is worthwhile in hatemongering places like abyssea.

i would also like to see some changes with the curing situation.
Many ppl have said it already but cure4 doesnt cut it AT ALL in abyssea. And outside of abyssea its still only scratches the HP of a PLD. Between the casting time and small amount cured, it can be a hassle to cure yourself or someone else in a hurry.

my Suggestion is this:
(Insert cool name Job Trait)~ PLD Cures only. Instant cast like dancer waltzes. spamming some cures helps control enmity anyway. so being able to do it quickly to "protect" a party member makes sense. and this way no new cures are needed so WHM wont have to worry about its toes being stepped on. with as many ways to recover MP that have been added the MP supply shouldn't even come into play.

[Bilonn]

Cover could also reduce enmity of all party members by 30%(PLD unaffected)

Or even make it a reversed Trick Attack. Anyone under the effect of Cover will receive no enmity from attacks--the Paladin receives it instead. This might make people think of actually staying behind us. Samurai or Blue Mage about to blast a solo skillchain? Have the Paladin cover them, then let loose, and be able to walk off without having picked up any hate.

[JagerForrester]

Or even make it a reversed Trick Attack. Anyone under the effect of Cover will receive no enmity from attacks--the Paladin receives it instead. This might make people think of actually staying behind us. Samurai or Blue Mage about to blast a solo skillchain? Have the Paladin cover them, then let loose, and be able to walk off without having picked up any hate.

Making Cover in that fashion is a little too unbalanced don't you think? The definition of cover doesn't fit covering everyone by standing still.

to place something over or upon, as for protection, concealment, or warmth.

I really think for cover to work is to do what it says. For protection, meaning up our defenses. Like an innate Defender ability latched onto Cover for it's amount of time plus increased shield blocking.

[Tim]

How about leaving paladin the same but giving it a "provoke" ability so that we dont have to sub warrior all the time.

[Gallus]

All these ideas of "higher enmity cap for Paladin", "improve cover", "flash 2", etc are driving me nuts. The problem with Paladin isn't that it needs to be made a better tank per se; it's that it needs to be made more versatile and bring more to a group than being a sponge. Paladin isn't worthless cause it can't provoke more. Paladin isn't useless cause it needs to cover more people. Paladin is useless because a wide array of jobs can sponge now and those jobs also contribute to the party. I'll post my entire list of suggestions and issues I believe plague PLD once I get home. In the meantime, I'd recommend reading my suggestions on page 1 if you haven't.

[Tim]

I was speaking more for survivability and hate control. like a paladin/ninja who has flash and provoke without warrior. that would help a lot. I understand how paladin works and what plagues it. I am fully merrited on enmity and have pretty good gear. My major problem even with atonement is my damage output. when a DD hits for 2000 damage I cannot hold hate long. I am interested to see your list though

[Een]

All Paladin needs is a way to turn from Defensive to Offensive and be able to turn back to Defensive on Demand. It COULD be like any other DD'er, turning that 900 defense into at least 550 attack and then back again when the mob is ontop of you again.

And Monks aren't going to be end all of tanking. I'm sorry, there is so much left to add in this game, monks for one feed too much TP to the mob. You ARE NOT gonna survive a NM that has a regain of 20+/tick that WS's every 4-5 seconds. You'd just be a MP dump.

But to get paladin back up there..yes a 20 second shield bash is needed. 1 Minute Sentinel, Rampart. They need to give paladin Provoke on his own so he can /nin to blink or /mnk for more HP.

And all really they need, even without a GS, is 1 Job ability so they can turn that defense into Offense. Simple as that. My sword skill is insane, it's fully merited, with the amount of +sword skill out there you can do some pretty nasty Vorpal Blades.

Don't think that I do not have a FULL STR build for Vorpal Blade. I can do some pretty NASTY vorpal blades. People don't respect Vorpal Blade for what it can do... Or a Full build for GS WS's for my paladin. All they need is a skill that turns all them defense bonuses they got into actual offense, they could deal enough damage to bring the mob back ontop of them and contend for hate with Skills, Flash, Healing the monk.

SE isn't going to let this job just die. If they are smart, they will turn a Paladin into what a Paladin truely is. A Defensive heavy armored Knight with the ability of getting the hell beat out of them and having the ability to beat the hell out of their target. Knights weren't sissies that just took damage for others. The brought fear and terror to their enemies, hard to kill and could kill you easily.

That is gonna be about the ONLY way to fix PLD. Allow them to have a JA that takes their 5 defense bonuses and turns them into 5 Attack bonuses with ACC along with it. Don't add enmity, just let it be obtained via spells/gear/skills. That is all they have to do. Be able to go from Defensive to Offensive Back to Defensive as needed. Make it like Hasso and Seigan, 1 minute recast, 5 minute duration that way the offense can be turned back into defense and so on and so forth.

They should add this Job Ability in. Call it 'The Calling of a True Knight'. Or 'The Release of a True Knight' because that is what Paladins really were. They were a higher order of Knights, that used a sword and shield and tore through legions of enemies. Instilled complete fear to anyone facing them, knowing they were going to die.

It's a real simple fix. It really is.

[Tim]

See I like your ideas but I think that a 1 minute sentinal and rampart is a bit much. and once you obtain Atonement a paladin should never use vorpal blade again. They need to take the 750 damage cap off of atonement so that a paladin can really do some damage.

[JagerForrester]

Yeah 750 damage for Atonement is good, but limiting. Raising the enmity cap might hinder us too. I can see the Paladins farther away from reaching the cap with the abilities and hate we currently create versus trigger happy DDs and what they can do.

[Martel]

And Monks aren't going to be end all of tanking.

No, but they're pretty damn good at it. Annoying as that is. But they don't have to be the end all. They just have to be more beneficial to have than an actual tank. Which, in most cases they are. They're high class DD, good tanks(and counter tanking makes things die faster), and a Vital part of a Blunt time Blue stagger setup(the most efficient setup to use. WHM+MNK, done).

About the only time you'd actually need a pld, would be in situations where a mnk either can't, or is not allowed to deal dmg for hate. And there aren't many of those now. Ummm, JoL? cept I suspect most ppl just zerg that now. hmm, Cuelebre? He's a flying type so a mnk can't hit him. Cept, with a decent barspell and carols you'd just have all the rng'd/mage dd tank him since he couldn't hurt them at all.

I'm sorry, there is so much left to add in this game, monks for one feed too much TP to the mob. You ARE NOT gonna survive a NM that has a regain of 20+/tick that WS's every 4-5 seconds. You'd just be a MP dump.

Ironically, MNKs are among the DDs that feed a mob the least TP. They have the second highest innate Subtle blow in the game and can easily gear their way to the cap. While still wearing very good DD gear. Chances are pretty good, If you have a decent TP build, you're most likely actually feeding the mob more TP than a good MNK would. Unless you also happen to have a capped subtle blow build, which is quite a bit harder to do on pld(and the DMG output lost is far more depressing..). After that it'd mostly be about who's throwing out the most hits, which'd probly be the MNK. But he'll also be doing far more dmg for a similar amount of TP feed.

But the thing that makes this point mostly irrelevant, is that it really doesn't matter if you MP sponge with the best of them. Unless the mob can one-shot you(and few things can hit 4k all at once) then the WHM should have no trouble keeping you up. 10~15/tick atma refresh, another ~3'ish in gear, WHM cure potency and efficiency, light arts, and sublimation(although, whm usually don't even have to use it anymore) make it very, very hard to run outta mp. So unless those spammy TP attacks can do ~4k dmg faster than a whm can alternate cure 5 and 6, it doesn't really matter. And if they can? They'll probly bring another whm, not a PLD. Bottom line, if the mnk can survive at all, they'll take him over a PLD for the increased dmg, and proc'ing utility.

But to get paladin back up there..yes a 20 second shield bash is needed. 1 Minute Sentinel, Rampart. They need to give paladin Provoke on his own so he can /nin to blink or /mnk for more HP.

I think the only conceivable reason to /MNK would be counterstance, not hp. A PLD with counterstance would be pretty funny though.<,<

As for the JA adjustments... I'd love a 20 second Shield Bash, but iI feel its unlikely. While DNC does get a stun on a 20 second timer, they pay for it in TP via building up finishing moves. If you can't land steps, you can't stun. Which mostly isn't an issue, but its a balancing mechanic.

1 min recast on sentinel ... would be completely an utterly game breaking. With sentinel you'd spend a full 50% of the time with +100 enmity, and 100%~50% PDT that's separate from PDT gear. Which is flat insane.

Rampart. would be pretty hax too.With valor coronet on the duration increases to 45 seconds. You'd have all of 15 seconds of downtime between uses. So you have a near constant magic shield effect, if of limited strength, cast on an entire party. I mostly find magical dmg to be more threatening to me than Physical, so this is quite potent. Additionally with full Iron Will merits you, and pt members nearby, would be rendered completely uninterruptable 3/4ths of the time. I think SE's nerf of 100% spell interrupt- builds, via the aquaveil change, was quite intentional. I don't think they liked us completely circumventing that game mechanic.

Recast are there for a reason, they balance the potency of JA through limiting their use. The reason sentinel and rampart can be as potent as they are is because their use is limited.

Don't think that I do not have a FULL STR build for Vorpal Blade. I can do some pretty NASTY vorpal blades. People don't respect Vorpal Blade for what it can do...

Vorpal Blade is certainly a good sword WS. It's the second best PLD sword WS, with Chant du Cygne being the best. The problem is, despite being a good WS, it can't even begin to compare with monster WS like Ukko's or Victory Smite. Even Chant pales in comparison, and its substantially more powerful than Vorpal. I would like to see that STR build though, I'm curious.

SE isn't going to let this job just die. If they are smart, they will turn a Paladin into what a Paladin truely is. A Defensive heavy armored Knight with the ability of getting the hell beat out of them and having the ability to beat the hell out of their target. Knights weren't sissies that just took damage for others. The brought fear and terror to their enemies, hard to kill and could kill you easily.

The key word here is, Balance. Giving a powerful defensive job top tier offensive capabilities is not conductive to balanced gameplay. And while SE hasn't always(ok, so rarely) managed to balance things out between classes, I do think they try.

That is gonna be about the ONLY way to fix PLD. Allow them to have a JA that takes their 5 defense bonuses and turns them into 5 Attack bonuses with ACC along with it. Don't add enmity, just let it be obtained via spells/gear/skills. That is all they have to do. Be able to go from Defensive to Offensive Back to Defensive as needed. Make it like Hasso and Seigan, 1 minute recast, 5 minute duration that way the offense can be turned back into defense and so on and so forth.

Giving us a mini berserk(even a full time one) isn't going to change anything. The heavy DD's will still out damage us, and other jobs will still have greater general utility. Until we start seeing mobs that absolutely require a PLD's Defensive, and enmity capabilities, to survive and tank, people will continue to use what's most efficient for them. Which is, and continues to be, DD tanks with the needed selection of stagger WS.

They should add this Job Ability in. Call it 'The Calling of a True Knight'. Or 'The Release of a True Knight' because that is what Paladins really were.

Please, no. I don't really object to the idea of the JA. It wouldn't really change PLD's situation, but it wouldn't hurt any either. But please, call it something else. I'd be embarrassed to have either of those names in my JA list. ; ;

And once you obtain Atonement a paladin should never use vorpal blade again. They need to take the 750 damage cap off of atonement so that a paladin can really do some damage.

The thing is, atm, Vorpal blade is vastly superior to Atonement. Sad though it is. Atonement's dmg cap aside, it's still far to limited. Ever since about the VNM update, nearly every NM added has come with at least a base -50% atonement resistance to Atonement. And some mobs are worse. I tried one on Pantokrator once, on two legs(weak to magic mode), and it hit for a whopping 83. There is no doubt that I should have had more than enough hate to cap dmg in that situation. Even if SE were to raise the dmg cap, it'd have to be an amazing increase to make Atonement a good ws again. And there's still that resistance issue...

But really, once you adapt to other WS(and manage to make inv space for WS gear ^^ its quite freeing using a normal WS. Now I WS to build hate, not build hate to WS. And while mobs with hate resets are still infuriating, and least it doesn't dump my dmg in the gutter every time it happens.

Christ, I shouldn't post when I'm sleepy. I babble. Good night.