Paladin: Possibilities

[Byrth]

As Yukichibi points out, Cover is a fundamentally flawed JA. You "Cover" someone who has more Enmity than you and take hits for them, which reduces your Enmity further and makes it harder to gain more Enmity than the person you're covering. It's a stopgap maneuver that you use when you hope the fight will end soon and you have no way to actually take hate. Making it a job trait would just rearrange party members so that they're all hiding behind the Paladin. It would make Paladin "useful" in that normal DDs wouldn't die to regular attacks, but no one dies to regular attacks at the moment anyway.

What would actually "fix" Cover would be redirecting enmity lost from taking damage during the JA to the players behind you and giving the Paladin some kind of CE bonus for damage mitigated during this time. Then you'd use Cover and come out of it with more Enmity than you entered it with.

It's difficult to justify bringing a Paladin anywhere at the moment because nothing is damaging enough that a DD couldn't tank it. Making Paladin able to hold hate 100% of the time wouldn't really change this. The true "fix" to Paladin is just adding hard monsters to the game outside Abyssea.

[Greatguardian]

It's difficult to justify bringing a Paladin anywhere at the moment because nothing is damaging enough that a DD couldn't tank it. Making Paladin able to hold hate 100% of the time wouldn't really change this. The true "fix" to Paladin is just adding hard monsters to the game outside Abyssea.

Eh, it's arguable that a MNK, DRK, or WAR at the least could still tank better than/as well as PLD even on harder mobs outside Abyssea since they were doing so at 75 anyways. Shields aren't really anything special.

[Byrth]

100% shield block rate, uninterruptability, and immunity to enfeebles (O.Chain) is something special. There's just nothing that really needs it at the moment.

[Greatguardian]

100% shield block rate, uninterruptability, and immunity to enfeebles (O.Chain) is something special. There's just nothing that really needs it at the moment.

D'oh, yes. Ochain is most definitely the exception to the rule. I'm trying to block it out of my memory right now because T2 VNM upgrade rates make me want to put my head through a wall.

[Byrth]

Haha, one of my friends is having a moderate amount of success buying VNM T3s for 250k each. One other idea would be to make Gamayun parties for people and require they have Colorfuls and give you the resulting Maeres. Saves you farming Colorfuls at least.

[Zyeriis]

The cover idea is just a start. Byrth, I am well aware that it doesn't give the PLD itself any form of enmity, and technically, indirectly, ends up lowering their enmity in the long run. That argument has little to do with it though. That's going to be the case no matter what if they're the ones being hit. They're tanking in either scenario, changing cover to a job trait merely makes it so they can tank without having to have hate.

As for: "everyone will just hide behind the Paladin", No this is also a false assumption. Enemies with conal attacks, Thief, limited space behind the Paladin, Rangers, Mages, etc. This also would work quite nicely with "Overwhelm" from Samurai. Pre-Abyssea, what job was a general nuissance to Paladin's because they could spam TP and get hate? Samurai's and Job/Samurai. What was Samurai's originally intended role? A tank. Cover as a job trait could just as well result in a change of dynamic here by having Samurais spam hate, behind a Paladin, stacked with overwhelm, and using Seigan Third Eye to protect themselves from the occassional un-covered attack that gets thrown their way.

Though, again, like I said, there are many solutions or changes to the solutions I've thus far brought up that I have yet to add. (I take thing slowly because of people who just "tl;dr") I'm not saying your points (aside from cover as a job trait having little to no value) are wrong, I'm saying they aren't the only possibilities: which is the title of the thread.

[Yukichibi]

PLD should gain enmity when it takes damage, at least from physical damage, the more it takes, the more he wants (sound like a masochist), he is an insult to the monster strengh and ferocity. (could be a job trait: Taunt or Kinght Challenge)

Making PLD immune to hate reset would place PLD in front line again for some annoying NMs, even if you can still do them without one, it's easier if you have a PLD to lock the enemy.

Those 2 small patches can maybe solve some enmity issue without turning PLD in a DD. (and repair cover by the way)

It is clear that the easiest way is to enhance PLD damage output, so he could keep and grab hate easier, but it ll become maybe the best DD if it's not done correctly because of his survability.

[Duelle]

Red Mage
Job Ability: Runic Blade
Duration: 1 min or until any spell is cast within range. (friend or enemy)
Recast: 1min
While wielding a blade (sword, dagger), a Red Mage can stop attacking/casting and intercept any spell cast within range of the effect. Intercepted spells have their effects canceled and the MP cost of the spell is absorbed by the Red Mage.

Used at the right time, the Red Mage could stop a potentially disasterous spell from damaging the group, and get a nice boost to their MP. They will have to be mindful of staying out of range of the other mages in the party, and good communication will be necessary with hybrid DD/Mages in melee range, such as the Paladin this is intended to help.

I mentioned this in the Runic Blade thread on the RDM sub-forums, but there's some tweaks that might be needed for that. Firstly the total damage done by the spell would have to be halved, and half of the MP cost of the spell would be abosrbed by the RDM. I only mention this because Runic as is would mean that one could possibly cheese spells that are supposed to kill a player or otherwise heavily damage the party as part of the encounter mechanic.

[AyinDygra]

I only mention this because Runic as is would mean that one could possibly cheese spells that are supposed to kill a player or otherwise heavily damage the party as part of the encounter mechanic.

In those rare instances where such a spell is part of the "encounter mechanic" (I can't think of any), I'm sure it could be programmed around by not allowing Runic to absorb certain spells as in FF6 (meteor, banish, flood, meltdown, quake, teleport, tornado)


Anyway, one more idea, that's not directly related to the Paladin Job, but could be accessed via subjob (as I envision Runic Blade to be Rdm main, but sub-able by Paladin)

Warrior
Job Ability: Enrage
Level 40 War
Casting time: Instant
Duration: 10-20 seconds
Recast: 1min
Acts like provoke, but gives the target a short-duration new effect: "Enraged"
* Should be an enmity building tool like Provoke.
* Adds the Attack-up and Defense-down of Berserk on the target for the duration of the "Enraged" effect.
* Adds Amnesia + Mute on target for the duration of the "Enraged" effect.

Paladins could make much better use of an ability like this than the Warrior, but it feels right to be given to Warrior mains.

[Kjara]

100% shield block rate, uninterruptability, and immunity to enfeebles (O.Chain) is something special. There's just nothing that really needs it at the moment.

Or, if 100% block rate is just too much, SE could just bring shield blocking back to how it originally was. Back when shield block = 0 dmg taken. SE changed that because it was too much game breaking but I think now it would be wise to reinstate it to compete with all those evasion/counter tanks. The game as it is now just screams "if you get damaged gtfo" and this is why people will take eva tanks over blood tanks.