Paladins need to actually be Paladins.

Paladins are simply dignified royal guards in this game. The job/class story explains it to you.

what bother me is...actually the cross skill of the CNJ are simply useless for the paladin! let's be honest... do we really need it?
it's a way to keep call it paladin, but on paper... the cross skill are useless!

- protect: casted by the healer of the group.... useless
- cure: at level 50 heal for 250-300 that...awesome... useless
- Raise: only used out of combat.... useless
- Stoneskin: the only one that can be usefull... wait.. i'm joking...seriously most of the time you will get interrupt and it will give you at best a shield of 600-700 hp ( bit more for the very well equiped)

and it's all... what the hell...

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Originally Posted by silentwindfr

- protect: casted by the healer of the group.... useless
- cure: at level 50 heal for 250-300 that...awesome... useless
- Raise: only used out of combat.... useless
- Stoneskin: the only one that can be usefull... wait.. i'm joking...seriously most of the time you will get interrupt and it will give you at best a shield of 600-700 hp ( bit more for the very well equiped)

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Protect: why does the healer have to cast it, I understand if you have a white mage, but if you have a scholar, your protect is just as powerful as theirs, so saying this is like saying protect is useless to a scholar, but yet people still want protect when they have a scholar healing.
Cure: let's look at the Siren fight, sometimes you don't need huge cures to remove the debuff that will charm a player, this can help if your healer is having trouble with the fight. Also if you are offtanking, even small cures tossed on the MT can help if your healers are struggling, I know you will say if they are struggling, then that's their problem, but you are part of the group, so you should be doing whatever you can to help out. It can also be useful to toss on your chocobo companion, they only have a couple thousand hps, so small heals still fill up a decent portion of their bar.
Raise: You aren't always in dungeons, so it could be useful in spirit bond parties, fate grinding, chocobo leveling parties, when people do these, they are usually all about efficiency, so running out of combat and raising can save a bit of time from then releasing and running back.
Stoneskin: Again this is just as useful for you as it is a scholar, but this one gains potency from the gear of the person you are stoneskinning, so it is more effective if you toss it on a high hp warrior, than a low hp paladin, but still a 600 point shield is useful. Toss it on yourself when Titan jumps, toss it on the MT when you are OT, toss it on the bard kiting the slimes, again you can use these abilities to help out a struggling healer.
Just because you don't use them constantly doesn't mean they are useless, and maybe if you neglect them all together as a paladin, you should learn more about what is available to you, and make yourself a better paladin by working them in. Remember you can always change your cross class skills to suit the fight, so if you are in coil, of course don't set raise over foresight but if you are spirit bonding, it could come in handy.

What's worse, is Bards are no longer "support" classes anymore, but rather a DPS class. Sure, you can sing a song, but not like they have always been traditionally. RIP Bard class.
At least Paladin's have nice armor, sword and shield. Bard, imo, is embarrassing to look at. And you hardly ever see their beautiful musical notes like in so many other mmo's. Very disappointed.

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Originally Posted by Archous

What's worse, is Bards are no longer "support" classes anymore, but rather a DPS class. Sure, you can sing a song, but not like they have always been traditionally. RIP Bard class.
At least Paladin's have nice armor, sword and shield. Bard, imo, is embarrassing to look at. And you hardly ever see their beautiful musical notes like in so many other mmo's. Very disappointed.

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A DPS class with a healer's Limit Break... I'm entirely convinced SE knew where they were going with that one.

While I don't mind my Paladin as she is, I will confess I would have liked to see more skills aimed at being the self-healing supertank. The downside of that is that it basically steals Warrior's tricks and would render them rather more redundant. As a result, I'm happy with things as they are.

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Originally Posted by silentwindfr

what bother me is...actually the cross skill of the CNJ are simply useless for the paladin! let's be honest... do we really need it?
it's a way to keep call it paladin, but on paper... the cross skill are useless!

- protect: casted by the healer of the group.... useless
- cure: at level 50 heal for 250-300 that...awesome... useless
- Raise: only used out of combat.... useless
- Stoneskin: the only one that can be usefull... wait.. i'm joking...seriously most of the time you will get interrupt and it will give you at best a shield of 600-700 hp ( bit more for the very well equiped)

and it's all... what the hell...

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Your most likely casting Stone Skin at the wrong time then. I use it quite a lot during battles and the key is to know when to use it. For example Ifrit HM, when he jumps up to do his dash attack cast it then, heck I even had enough time to cast it on a another player.

Yeah, my gripe has always been the usefulness of our Conjurer third...

I don't necessarily need us to have strong heals or anything, but it'd be nice if our cross class skills didn't boil down to "Foresight, Bloodbath, and that one useful one from Conjurer".

I said it before waaaay back in a much older thread on the topic, that I want to see job traits that alter some of the base cross class skills to make them a bit unique. Like a Paladin's Protect autocovering allies at or below 30% if they're in range...or making the Bloodbath heal not just the paladin, but everyone around him as well. A paladin's base cure casting instantly, and curing allies for more than it could cure the paladin themselves, still not like a full healer, but good for patch-healing. Little things that make old abilities new again based on the job you're drawing the cross class stuff too.

Yeah... OP is surprisingly cogent. It's a simple job, but a crucial one. Is it flashy? Not really. Instant queues, badass mount, everybody loves me, etc. I can live with that.

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Originally Posted by Saziel

If this wasn't the Final Fantasy series, maybe.

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Originally Posted by ispano

Or it's because the word Paladin has a much more generic meaning and SE is free to design it this way if they wish. What you think a Paladin should be isn't 100% absolute.

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Except that Paladin isn't exactly an abstract concept. A paladin is a warrior, who through faith gained the use of white magic. This is the concept of Paladin no matter what source you use, and it's based on the definition dating back to Charlemagne's court of religious warriors. We interpret that in fantasy games as being warriors of *good*, which in Final Fantasy means white magic. This is actually very specific, and it would be very nice of Paladins would continue to be strong warriors that use their few (but moderately powerful) divine spells intelligently.

Would be pretty cool if Shield Oath increased self healing by a certain % (not enough to make it so OP it rivals healer's first healing ability), remove savage blade, replace it with an instant cast cure that increases threat if used after fast blade. Ya know...something to make PLD have more of a cleric knight feel.

I agree. There should be only 12 of us at a time. Fully committed to the Sultans orders. We need to slay every infidel in the Sultana including dabblers in Conjury and Arcantism.

@Mcshiggs: well, recall me the jobs of scholar and the jobs of paladin?
We are tank, the skill we gonna use, will help us into this jobs

- where cast protect make us better at tank? Scholar don't have ton of cross skill at take and seriously a scholar too lazy for cast protect is meh! it's him jobs as healer/buffer.
- where cast cure that heal us for 280-300 under CD, make us a better tank? (just as note, Storm path heal almost as strong... and reduce damage deal by the target of 10%, can't be interrupted and be used in him combo)
- where Raise is usefull in our jobs? it's something you do outside fight... cost half of our mana...
- Where stoneskin can be used and make it really reliable? if you are in team and really need Stoneskin, that your healer jobs to put it on you. we can argue that scholar have the same, but the white mage is 18% in comparaison of our. other point, while you cast this, you can be interupted, you can't move and more important! you don't generate any threat.
finally, stoneskin from the paladin, will give use a shield of 450-700 hp, most of boss hit for around 1000.... indeed it save some damage, but you just did burn 300+ mp on your 1400 for that... do it worth it? no. save it for flash will be more usefull.

the role of a tank, is endure the damage of the enemy and keep the enemy on him. none of the crosskill from the conjurer help in this jobs.

in the V1 our healing was increase, even in the early beta we was able to use healing quite nicely, it was not at the same level than a healer but was decent... there is a joke! barely worth the fact to put it in your bar, your chocobo, heal more than you... and i'm not talking of a chocobo level 10, nop.. even with just the choco healing, it will heal you for 350+...

What I don't like about Paladin is the Conjurer cross class skills, the only thing that is semi useful is stoneskin. I am looking at party and raid situations.

Only useful ability
Stoneskin - can mitigate 700+ damage depending on hp, really only useable when the boss isn't hittable or when you are not tanking can cast it on the other tank.

Useless abilities.
Cure - at level 50 only heals for 220 hp which is about 2% of your total hp and has a long cast time, fairly useless.
Raise - Can not be used in combat, setting this basically not having an abilitiy at all so useless.
Protect - You will always have a whm or sch to cast this in any party or raid, so once again useless.

I'm Ok with Paladin not having religious overtones. I don't think I'm the only one that doesn't associate Paladin with 'Holy Knight of Righteousness' bla bla bla...
Granted, if they could fit the religious overtones into the world lore then it'd be something I could get behind.

Personally, I'd like to see White Mages casting "holy" type magic a la FFXI's Dia, Banish, Banishga, etc and Black Mages having control over the elements. Maybe then Blm would feel more like a Blm instead of a one trick pony. Mind you, I still think that they should have only as many spells as they could effectively use so that there isn't a bunch of spells just sitting there....
Although with the GDC .... the elements thing becomes problematic. -_-;

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Originally Posted by Gramul

I agree. There should be only 12 of us at a time. Fully committed to the Sultans orders. We need to slay every infidel in the Sultana including dabblers in Conjury and Arcantism.

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^ this made me giggle XDD

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Originally Posted by silentwindfr

@Mcshiggs: well, recall me the jobs of scholar and the jobs of paladin?
We are tank, the skill we gonna use, will help us into this jobs
the role of a tank, is endure the damage of the enemy and keep the enemy on him. none of the crosskill from the conjurer help in this jobs.
in the V1 our healing was increase, even in the early beta we was able to use healing quite nicely, it was not at the same level than a healer but was decent... there is a joke! barely worth the fact to put it in your bar, your chocobo, heal more than you... and i'm not talking of a chocobo level 10, nop.. even with just the choco healing, it will heal you for 350+...

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First off all your questions you just asked were answered in my previous post, but after reading this you managed to type up I can understand there were probably many words you didn't understand. Sure as a tank your job is to hold threat and take damage, but as part of the group it is your job to do what is needed to help the group succeed, many fights require tank swaps, when you don't have the boss, you can stoneskin the MT. If you are one of those that refuses to go outside of your comfort zone to help the group and just blame someone else, I wouldn't want you tanking for me to begin with. And as to your chocobo example, what if you didn't spec your chocobo into heals, how can it's non existent heal be better than a cure from you? Like I said just because you don't use it all the time, doesn't make it completely useless.

Whatever you'd consider adding, you'd absolutely have to consider game balance first. Anything you'd give PLD at this point would just cause the WAR players to go...berserk.

Besides, the level cap is still 50 - there's a ton of abilities from version 1.0 that have not returned, like Red Lotus and Phalanx, (and some abilities had their level requirements lowered, like Rage of Halone), suggesting that SE has these missing abilities reserved for level cap increases in the future, hence meaning healing/'holy' magic skills might return later on. Players just have to be patient, ARR is barely over six months old - it's still young. :)

Also, like the SMN threads with people begging for FFXI-style avatars to be used with SMN instead of the 'egis' players actually have, players need to get out of the 'FFXI-did-it-this-way-and-I-want-ARR-to-be-the-same!' mindset and remember this is a completely different game with a completely different lore and setting. Eorzean PLDs are not like the Temple Knights of San d'Oria in FFXI - they're just knights who are the royal guard of Ul'dah (the Sultansworn, as several people have already pointed out).

They don't have white magic on their skillset because, a. White Magic is actually a forbidden art in Eorzea (see WHM Job quests), and b. they have no need for it. They are basically just knights, period. Personally I'm starting to wish SE just used the Japanese name for the Job (literally, 'Knight') instead of PLD as it wouldn't have resulted in this silly arguement.

I know a lot of fantasy casts "Paladins" as holy-magic type warriors, but in reality, all "Paladin" really means is basically knight. This is congruent with the background story of the Paladins in this game and the job quest series.

That said, requiring CNJ15 and getting CNJ abilities to cross-class from, PLD always feels a bit shafted in this regard. It's a real shame that its magic/curative aspect feels utterly useless. Not going to argue with that...

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Originally Posted by Souljacker

Except that Paladin isn't exactly an abstract concept. A paladin is a warrior, who through faith gained the use of white magic. This is the concept of Paladin no matter what source you use, and it's based on the definition dating back to Charlemagne's court of religious warriors. We interpret that in fantasy games as being warriors of *good*, which in Final Fantasy means white magic. This is actually very specific, and it would be very nice of Paladins would continue to be strong warriors that use their few (but moderately powerful) divine spells intelligently.

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Except no, white magic has nothing to do with it. That's just something some games have given them. A Paladin is simply this: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/paladin and if you actually read about Charlemagne's court, there is no mention of magic at all.

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

Personally I'm starting to wish SE just used the Japanese name for the Job (literally, 'Knight') instead of PLD as it wouldn't have resulted in this silly arguement.

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If they did this, then the people that are complaining about how XIV did paladin would just have been complaining that Knight should have been paladin since it uses a sword and shield, can cross class white magic spells from conjurer and gets paladin abilities from previous Final Fantasies like cover and hallowed ground.

It would be pretty neat if Riot Blade would proc instacast half MP cost cure as an combo, atleast then there would be point to have it on hotbars. It would still heal that 220hp+(potency boost would be nice tho but i can live without it for the sake of balance)but if it was instant and only cost half of the normal MP it would be slightly more usefull than it is now.

paladin is GLA +1 not paladin.

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Originally Posted by Synra

I think the problem is that the JP developers misunderstand exactly what a Paladin is supposed to be.

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The devs know the basic idea behind a tank-oriented knight. That aspect is really the only aspect that matters when you're looking at tank design, and our PLD meets that requirement to a T.

The FF paladin historically has weak white magic, so I wouldn't expect magic to have a significant role in gameplay. Not to mention it would heavily clash with the damage mitigation PLD has at its core.

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I won't say that Paladin needs to have magic, but it at least needs to have religious overtones. Show me a church in the story. Give me a Job story where my GLA learns the power of faith.

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You're confusing the FF paladin with the D&D and/or Warcraft paladins. The FF paladin is about protecting, not having faith. This is why the FFXIV PLD is defined by the Sultansworn, who in essence protect and serve.

There may have been light vs dark overtones in FFIV, but ナイト is pretty much just a knight that happens to have access to weak white magic.

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Originally Posted by Saziel

Cecil's magic was decent as a backup. I mean, at least he had Cure II and Esuna, lol.

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Which would be overpowered on anything that is not a healer in an MMORPG. MMORPGs and single-player console RPGs call for different approaches to design.

I'm not really sure what to say about this other than the class is balanced properly already and doesn't really need any sort of change. It serves it's purpose. Just because it's called 'Paladin' doesn't mean it's set of abilities need to fit in with the lore of any other Final Fantasy version of a paladin, let alone any other version of paladin from the lore of anything else.

It's just a name. If names always dictated function and purpose we wouldn't bake cookies and cook bacon, would we?

I'm getting the feeling that people are trying to make the current paladin class into a wow type paladin. But anyways, let's say if paladin was given a semi self sufficient heal of lets say 1/2 to 2/3 the level of a healer, then in balance, we would have to nerf or take away the defensive skills he has to compensate. So, instead of managing cds the tank will now have to constantly spam cure on himself (or it might be a HoT so less of a hassle) so in the end I don't see a huge difference. I mean they could get a party wide defensive buff I suppose (i.e. tank limit break) or something similar to succor? But again, these jobs are already better done on the healer. So for now, at this level cap, the skills available are pretty good on the paladin. Future levels could change this of course. One thing they could improve upon is finding a better use of shield swipe.

Nah, I think they should homogenize the jobs even more :Kappa:

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Originally Posted by indira

paladin is GLA +1 not paladin.

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I believe the proper term these days is "GLA Zenith".

Paladins don't have to be religious... when I think of a Paladin, I think of justice, honor, and chivalry... I think of this guy/girl.

http://www.wizards.com/mtg/images/da...e_1024x768.jpg

Religious or Secular, I've always thought of the Paladin as... a Defender.

"Upon this Rock even the Ever-spawing Hordes of the Void shall not prevail."

Skills like Hallowed Ground are perfect for the job.

Now... it would be nice to have one "Call the Spirit" (Kiai!) skill, which would be, say. a long-CD "Heal Self 100%" tool...

"Paladins" in FF games were traditionally heavy-armor melee autoattackers with some auxillary skills geared toward defending others in the party (usually, Cover or Provoke,) and sometimes a limited pool of white magic mostly included for out of combat utility. Sometimes the class's name was just translated to "knight" (FF1, FF5). In later games, where melee classes got special attacks, higher-level paladins could dish out some pretty lightshows that were basically flashy dressed-up sword techniques. Also, they were prettier and everyone wanted to kiss them.

This is actually pretty close to older DnD, where Paladins are just exceptionally strong fighters with a good CHA score, superhuman resistances to certain nasty effects, and access to unique magical weapons (usually a holy sword that is bonkers overpowered if a DM let you have it.)

So yeah. Not that one or the other is better, but I think they did a good job of nailing the Final Fantasy "Paladin" with the one here.

As a paladin my major urge is to be able to fight while mounting my steed. I feel so un-knightly without a destrier!

Hi, tanker here...Wait, wait, correction, nooby tanker here.

I played with both, paladin and warrior level 50 less and 50 further, and some dungeons and so... And... i have to say it, can't avoid to say it... The only cool stuff of paladins is their Af1 armor, just that. Seriously... It was awesomely boring to level them up to 50, at least in 50 they obtain Circle of Scorn and that's something, but stills... Warrior stills winning in funny thing much more...

Paladins are all like... The same, there's no variant... While Warriors have a lot of differences between them, some people like to use certain malm combos more, others butcher block spam, some people uses the inner beast more than other steel cyclone, there are plenty of different gaming styles for Warrior, that it doesn't happen to Paladin.

The only reason I used paladin job was because of Shield's oath, because, seriously, without that, I could better use gladiator and at least have a crazy variety of abilities.

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Originally Posted by Cyrus-Wallace

I think some people are wanting to have a WoW Paladin here, but you must admit that cure is lame and not being able to resurrect during a battle, is lame as well.

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So you mean .. Exactly like a WoW Paladin then? Tank Paladins have access to all the Base healing spells the Healing Paladins have. Those spells are next to worthless there too for the Tank side though, as you arent gearing or speccing for healing attributes there. There is literally no way to make XIV PLDs heal themselves for a decent amount for as long as they have Infinite MP (Riot Blade).

Paladin's native MND stat is actually pretty good compared to other classes. Plus, they have Riot Blade for virtually unlimited MP recovery as long as enemies are around.

I think the biggest problem is that SE came up with a stereotypical tank itemization (+VIT, +Parry) for the higher-level equipment instead of differentiating for each tank class.

To anyone saying that PLD is just a knight, then why the hell does the job require CNJ15 out of all things to access?

To me, that was the most clear indicator that the class was going to have some degree of white magic. The job is half a Conjurer, but has no CNJ skills whatsoever. SE also knew what the class entailed or they wouldn't have made it this way. Yet somewhere in the design process this concept was swept under the rug and PLD now is just a dude with a shield and Sword.

Right now, if we where to go with how the class play, the job requirement should have been GLD30 MRD15. 4 of my 5 cross-class skills are from the MRD line anwyays, and save for SS, none of the CNJ ones are useful.

Okay, I'm about to go on a rant. To preface this, I've played lots of RPGs, some MMOs, and League of Legends for 4 years.

The Paladin's kit and design if H O R R I F I C. So Jubez, why do you play then? I play because the DUNGEON mechanics carry this game. Not the class mechanics, the DUNGEON mechanics. Why do you think there's no interesting solo content in this game really? Because the class mechanics are weak.

1. Aggro/hate/enmity. The Paladin gets aggro/hate/enmity way too easily. Shield Oath, Flash, Provoke, Halone. It's all too easy. The threat of losing aggro is nonexistent in this game. Provoke should have a longer cooldown, flash should cost mana scaling with how many enemies there are. The list goes on.

2. Pala-what? A Paladin is supposed to be a HOLY warrior. With magical capabilities. I think SE kind of knew this when they gave us Riot Blade..but then never gave us a single spell to use. Imagine having to balance out your spells/MP/DPS/tanking all in one? Yea, that would be insanely fun and rewarding. But nope.

3. Rage of Halone. This is the worst skill to ever be put in this game. Highest damage? Check. Best at gaining threat? Check. Some bonus utility? Check. It's an all-in-one skill. There is never any reason to ever not spam it really. SE should break the skill up into different combo paths. Do I need the extra hate? Do we need extra damage right now? Etc etc. More decision paths, more rewarding.

4. 35 Mitigation Skills. Mitigation skills are BORING. Also, they are extremely intangible. Stone skin is good because you can physically SEE your health bar not going down. You feel good about using it. You pop convalescence, well, who knows if it actually saved you or not! It's more of a buff to your healer than a buff to you. Foresight (who even knows who does magic damage?), Awareness, Bullwark..which is the best to use and when? WHO KNOWS! Seriously, by the time I was getting enhanced Awareness as a trait I was like okay this is getting out of hand..

6. Sword/Shield Oath lack Depth. Sword Oath could affect sword skills and Shield Oath your shield skills. Seeing as they cost mana to switch, it brings me back to my other point of having mana incorporated into the Paladin's kit.

Okay Okay I've been a little rough on ole Pally, do I have anything good to say about him? Yes. One thing that is fun is Stun/Pacify/Silence canceling and management. One of the most fun and rewarding things about the class. However, it could be better. Successful Shield Bashes should grant attack speed buff or something of the sword. Some incentive to stay in the AoE in hopes of getting the cancel. Also, not a lot of big bosses can be canceled.


But like I said, this game was more designed about boss mechanics. Imagine if people had to manage all of those things I mentioned AND dodge and do other stuff? No one would progress anywhere. I guess this is just how the game is by design, easy class mechanics, hard boss mechanics.

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Originally Posted by Mcshiggs

...this one gains potency from the gear of the person you are stoneskinning, so it is more effective if you toss it on a high hp warrior, than a low hp paladin...

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I'm just going to jump in here to correct this, stoneskin is just as effective on a warrior with defiance (extra hp) as it is on a paladin with shield oath (takes less damage). The amount of damage that is reduced by shield oath means that stoneskin will absorb the same amount of damage whether it is cast on a "low hp paladin" or a "high hp warrior".

I just want a two handed sword. No it doesn't have to be gigantic or from FF7. >_>

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Originally Posted by Jubez187

3. Rage of Halone. This is the worst skill to ever be put in this game. Highest damage? Check. Best at gaining threat? Check. Some bonus utility? Check. It's an all-in-one skill. There is never any reason to ever not spam it really. SE should break the skill up into different combo paths. Do I need the extra hate? Do we need extra damage right now? Etc etc. More decision paths, more rewarding.

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I really, REALLY agree with this. Definitely the best out of all the points you made. I would love to see something like this happen. Before RoH unlocks, it plays like this with Fast Blade being the stronger of your 2 combo paths, but we lose that depth of choice at level 26. Shame really. What I think we need is for Fast Blade to have something after it with a higher potency over RoH. We will probably have to wait for the level cap to rise first though. ::sigh::

Blame the translators. They're putting way too much, I dunno what I would call it, maybe drama on everything. Like someone said before it's actually just Knight in the original. I dunno why they had to translate it to Paladin. They made some of the names of the skill sound holy-ish or something but they mostly do the same thing Knight Jobs in FFIII did.

Also look at the dialogue in english. They try to make it sound so archaic that it feels really forced and corny. I've tried the other languages that I speak as the voice with english subtitles and I gotta say they sound way better and more natural with a slight to moderate mismatch to meaning. I get how you can't translate everything word for word but trust me, many of the dialogue could probably have been said in a better way in english than it is now :D

2 cents