The necessary Paladin overhaul (Here you go S-E - I've fixed the job for you)

[Gallus]

Paladin in it's current state is useless. The job deals too little damage, does not generate enmity fast enough to keep up with other jobs, and really offers nothing to groups that other, more versatile jobs can. It's a one-trick pony that's run out of steam. So, the job clearly needs to be revised. I believe I can offer the solution to the situation.

Edit 5/13: Changed permanent enlight effect given with no shield equipped to a Bravery aura and reworked how I think light-based magic should be buffed without a shield equipped. Minor additional changes throughout the post. Nerfed an idea or two cause I thought I might have gone a little overboard in hindsight (regarding how changes would interact with other changes). I hope you'll find the ideas an interesting read.

The Cure to the Common, Crappy Paladin

First off, Paladin will need to be made more versatile. To fix that, I propose these two configurations depending on choice of gear (well, shield or no shield):

Paladin: The Support/Tank
From now on Paladin will be able to offer the party not only a tank that can grab and hold hate, but one that can support the party. While wielding a shield, Paladin will gain access to a support aura that will offer 2-tick regen, refresh, and regain to all party members in the general area (Paladin included), also, allies affected by aura will be subject to a rapid enmity decay affect. Additionally, Paladin will now be able to "stagger" monsters with their shield. A staggered monster sufferers from reduced evasion, defense, and becomes more susceptible to critical hits. The effect lasts 10 seconds. There is a chance of staggering on a successful shield block. The larger the shield, the more likely it is to stagger (likelihood varies 25~50%). Shield Bashes can trigger the effect and would be considered successful shield blocks for the sake of determining if they were successful in doing so. Alongside the enmity decay given by aura and job ability adjustments below, I think it's safe to say Paladin wouldn't have much of a problem holding hate along with being able to contribute to the party's efficiency, making it a more attractive job inside parties.

Paladin: The DD/Healer
So Paladin can offer more to their party as the tank, but what if the party doesn't need a dedicated tank? Perhaps the monster is dying so fast it doesn't matter? Well here's the fix for that. Paladin will now be able to fill the roll of a decent damage dealer (not a super-amazing DD) and bring their healing skills to the front lines to boot. When not wielding a shield, Paladin will gain access to a Bravery aura, providing a 10~15% damage buff to all standard and crit hits made by the Paladin and nearby allies. Additionally, the Paladin's light-based spells will be given double-potency (Enlight included) and a +25% cure potency. Cures will provide the targets with TP (3TP for Cure, 4TP for Cure 2, 5TP for Cure 3, 6TP for Cure 4).

So that covers the major changes to the job. As for the more minor, I think a new job ability and a few changes to existing ones will pretty much wrap up all that's needed to repair the Paladin job:

New Job Ability
Battle Chanting: The Paladin's spells do not interrupt battle-related actions. Additionally, they can't be interrupted through physical means. Recast timer of spells is doubled. 90 minute duration, 5 minute recast.

Job Ability Changes
Sentinel: Ability now heavily reduces the enmity of the next highest party member on the monster's enmity list and prevents their enmity gain for 20 seconds. Damage reduction and enmity gained by Paladin still applies. Reuse lowered to 1 minute, duration will be lowered to 7 seconds. (mathematically, 6 would appear better, as you'd be reducing the recast from 5 minutes to 1, however, I feel it would better balance out with the extra activations interrupting hits more often)

Rampart: When used, the Paladin absorbs 30% of all nearby allies' enmity. Enmity is compounded onto the Paladin. This compounded enmity can go over cap, however, quickly decays down (back to standard cap within 10 seconds). Magic damage reduction now quarters magic damage taken by all party members for the short duration. Reuse lowered to 45 seconds, duration of magic shield lowered to 3 seconds.

Shield Bash: Reuse lowered to 90 seconds. Damage can crit.

Oh, and here's a couple New Job Traits
Divine Protection: Cover no longer requires the Paladin stand in front of target to redirect damage.

Smite: When an enemy's HP is under 5%, the damage dealt by Paladin's light-based magic is multiplied 4x on the target (does not stack with the 2x mod given when no shield equipped - this will replace that mod in given scenarios).

This should pretty much do it. Nothing too over-the-top, but everything needed to breath life back into the job in ways that will not only benefit the player, but also their party members.

[Chiibi]

Hmm... interesting cant add anything to that but thanks for adding examples on how it would work

[Mara]

As far as abyssea goes, you COULD just get yourself an empyrean or WoE sword, PLD/NIN, offhand joytoy for TP gain, RR/GH/apoc atmas + full DD/haste gear and you'll be belting out ridiculous DD numbers with the mark or zorro. I regularly do 2k-3k dmg and can spike up to 5k. Honestly, the week I spent getting my badelaire+2 is the best thing I've ever done for my PLD. time much more than well spent. Rather than being a mediocre tank/backup healer, or a piss poor DD, I typically place in the top 3 DDs of an alliance now, and on things with a bit more oomph than XP mobs I can keep hate through sheer dmg alone if I need to. You don't need to ask SE to fix PLD, they already did, you've just been too lazy to do the work to obtain a sword with the single best WS SE has ever given to us.

And outside of abyssea CdC still does better dmg than any other WS we have, 1500-1700 with spikes up past 2k. If/when we go past abyssea into 90+ content the time investment for getting this sword/WS is not wasted. It is, without a doubt, the best thing that has happened to PLD in a very long time.

[Lyndonn]

2 a tick Regain to all party members will kill the hate also means if there is melee in that party they can spam more >.>

i wouldnt want Flash to be double Recast time because that is a paladins main Emnity gain Function in many events now.

id Prefer them to Raise emnity Cap or Create a move with Temp Freezes Hate gain from other jobs like 60 second Duration on a 5minute recast this should allow the Paladin to re establish hate

[Aeonk]

As far as abyssea goes, you COULD just get yourself an empyrean or WoE sword, PLD/NIN, offhand joytoy for TP gain, RR/GH/apoc atmas + full DD/haste gear and you'll be belting out ridiculous DD numbers with the mark or zorro. I regularly do 2k-3k dmg and can spike up to 5k. Honestly, the week I spent getting my badelaire+2 is the best thing I've ever done for my PLD. time much more than well spent. Rather than being a mediocre tank/backup healer, or a piss poor DD, I typically place in the top 3 DDs of an alliance now, and on things with a bit more oomph than XP mobs I can keep hate through sheer dmg alone if I need to. You don't need to ask SE to fix PLD, they already did, you've just been too lazy to do the work to obtain a sword with the single best WS SE has ever given to us.

And outside of abyssea CdC still does better dmg than any other WS we have, 1500-1700 with spikes up past 2k. If/when we go past abyssea into 90+ content the time investment for getting this sword/WS is not wasted. It is, without a doubt, the best thing that has happened to PLD in a very long time.

What she said. What she said 1000x over. CDC is the new Atonement (since the old Atonement is dead.) Only less gimmicky and higher dmg (and a brutally effective aftermath if you go for Almace instead of WoE.)

PLD as a job is not worthless. It just no longer has the "Easy Button" tanking that was joytoy Atonement spam. If you want to tank again, get an Almace or Baudelair. Because this "MNK tank" mentality is not going to go away post-abyssea.

[Karinya_of_Carbuncle]

If you want to tank again, get an Almace or Baudelair.

How is that any different from "If you want to tank, get a D-ring/Aegis/Burtgang"? Gear is not a substitute for job balance, especially gear that is by design exceptionally hard to obtain.

Now, if they make CdC questable like mythic WS, then that might be an answer (although even then, it's "tanking" by becoming yet another DD, which is a questionable solution -- even worse if you're also becoming an imitation blink tank at the same time, at that point there's really nothing left of PLD at all and you've "solved" the tanking imbalance by turning PLD into a clone of other blink tanking DD/NINs).

[Martel]

How is that any different from "If you want to tank, get a D-ring/Aegis/Burtgang"? Gear is not a substitute for job balance, especially gear that is by design exceptionally hard to obtain.

Certainly, gear is no substitute for game balance. But changing our gear, and play style, are all we can really do to improve our PLDs. And make them at least somewhat competitive. Getting CdC, and gearing for DD is currently about the only way PLD can fight against the skewed game mechanics. Correcting game balance is up to SE.

It's different from, "get a D-ring/Aegis/Burtgang" in that Badelaire+2 is entirely possible to get, even for a casual player. Its not an obnoxious statement telling you to do the impossible(or at least very difficult), its just good advice.

Now, if they make CdC questable like mythic WS, then that might be an answer (although even then, it's "tanking" by becoming yet another DD, which is a questionable solution -- even worse if you're also becoming an imitation blink tank at the same time, at that point there's really nothing left of PLD at all and you've "solved" the tanking imbalance by turning PLD into a clone of other blink tanking DD/NINs).

This isn't anything new. We've been just another DD/NIN tank on PLD for years. Atonement gave rise to the DD PLD. And that was a great time for PLD. But even then, people were already tanking things with DD/NIN, and finding it more efficient than PLD.

[Sekundes]

Open and read any post about PLD on any of the major forums and you will see argument after argument about what can be done to fix it but with the content we currently have in the game, there is no reason for a specialized tank. Any job that can deal enough damage to keep hate off the mages can be a tank just fine. The problem is dd's are tough enough, have enough hp, and have access to enough pdt, mdt and other such gear swaps to stay alive and because mp is less of an issue(even outside of abyssea) there isn't any need to mitigate damage anymore. Conserving mp and keeping the dd's alive is no longer an issue and thus PLD's job of keeping hate off of the dd's so they can keep dealing damage without dying is moot since they end up tanking most of the time and can do it just fine without exhausting party resources.

Fixing PLD would require content that NEEDS a PLD, where mp conservation and damage taken actually matter or giving PLD something that allows them to do something nothing else can. That or taking away dd's ability to survive so well, in and out of abyssea and honestly, I wouldn't really want the latter.

I think PLD can still be a great job if optimized but against dd's who know what they are doing, no PLD can keep hate off of them as the system currently stands.

I know everyone who loves PLD wants this fixed but we have to be very careful about how it is fixed to ensure a good game balance.

[Aeonk]

How is that any different from "If you want to tank, get a D-ring/Aegis/Burtgang"? Gear is not a substitute for job balance, especially gear that is by design exceptionally hard to obtain.

Now, if they make CdC questable like mythic WS, then that might be an answer (although even then, it's "tanking" by becoming yet another DD, which is a questionable solution -- even worse if you're also becoming an imitation blink tank at the same time, at that point there's really nothing left of PLD at all and you've "solved" the tanking imbalance by turning PLD into a clone of other blink tanking DD/NINs).

D ring/Aegis/Burtgang does nothing that you couldn't do with other gear pieces/sets. Mainly because, those are all defensive items and we're not struggling with that aspect of tanking.

Almace is an entirely different animal. CDC is such a radical change in dmg output that actually, yes it DOES in fact make up for job balance (or inbalance one might say.) And the main difference between what you listed and an empyrean, is that Almace/Baudelair are completely feasible to get. It doesn't take you a year of repetitive runs and/or millions of gil, it just takes a week or 2.

It's ironic that you mention making it questable like mythic WS's, because I'd say it would take roughly the same time to climb from floor 0 to 100 in nyzul as it would to do all the NM/VNM's and at least finish stage 1 of an empyrean.

As for making it a clone of a DD/NIN... that's the way hate works. Not much I can do for you there, but I'm sure even you abused the hell out of Atonement back when it was good. How is me abusing CDC to achieve the same result more efficiently all of a sudden make PLD an imitation of a "real" DD?

Besides, dealing good dmg doesn't take away from other things that make PLD a PLD. We can still wear shields while DD'ing, we can still cure, can still cover, and still have our "OSHIT" job abilities/gear sets.

Nothing about PLD has changed. We hold hate the same way we did before, we just have to use a different means to achieve the same end. If you don't like the aspect that we blink tank now (even though we've been doing that forever now...), I suggest an Ochain. Ochain > /NIN sub for most things. But that shield, despite how godly it is, isn't going to help you hold hate off the MNK in your alliance.

[Orenwald]

give PLD a job trait at 75 that makes them gain enmity for taking damage instead of lose it, and make "Reduces enmity when taking physical damage" to "Enhances <the name of that job trait>" ... That'd fix PLD something nasty