As many people have noticed Paladins have some of the worst cross class skills imaginable. As such I thought of what skills/skill changes I'd like to see added to our skilltrees.
Cure II- Cure can save your ass in a tight spot but I read most Paladins sub this skill out for stoneskin. I personally feel Cure II would be more useful, and provide more of a reason to use Riot blade. It would also help us support the healer in instances where we are playing OT.
Protect- Give us Proshell or take it away. This skill is honestly pretty pointless outside of solo play and even then you don't need it. Better left to the healers.
Holy- An aoe skill that binds at the cost of all your mana. I don't see why one of the Paladins Iconic skills are not in his skillset. This looks like it was MADE for a Paladin. Happily trade Protect for this skill. (Or since it's a WHM skill let us have an equivalent called Holy Blade/Holy Flash/Holy Flare idgaf)
Raise- Let us raise in combat. No reason that we should not be able to raise the healer yet a Summoner (dps) can cast raise in combat.
Cover- Longer duration or shorter cooldown. Preferably the latter.
Riot Blade- Potency increase please. Maybe I'm spoiled from my memories of Riot Blade in Final Fantasy 6 but it would be nice to have at least ONE dps skill if for nothing more then solo purposes.
Paladin Cross/Class skill changes please
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12-02-2013, 11:40 AMTajPaladin Cross/Class skill changes please
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12-02-2013, 12:47 PMCassandaria
Please forgive me, I don't mean to come across as rude in my replies but I feel you're looking at this from the wrong perspective. Many of the skills you suggest don't belong on a tanks bar at all (from my perspective). Take cure II, paladin doesn't have the mind to make it as viable as you think, instead you are taking the major healing away from another job that should be handling it in the first place. Protect is something that a paladin shouldn't have either, again, that kind of mitigation is the healers role. Holy? Why would you put the iconic whm skill that has BEEN a whm skill since FF1 on a paladin? Raise, again, while I can see the value of having that, your cast times would be ridiculous as you can't pair it with swiftcast and you will lose hate to do that raise. Nor does it generate enough hate to be a good thing. Cover should be easier to use, I agree with that. As for riot blade? I feel you there, but they use it for a different reason, it just happens to have a similar name is all.
Again, I'm sorry if these come across as rude, I just wanted to add my thoughts on it. -
12-02-2013, 01:25 PMTaj
I appreciate your Opinion Cass. However I feel that the tank role in Final Fantasy shouldn't be the same cookie cutter design as themajority of other MMORPG's. I personally have always liked the versatility of Paladin and in instances where we are not the main tank the skills I listed would greatly support party survivability.
Holy has been usable by Paladins in many Final Fantasy games across the board. It's not as useful, but I feel an AoE bind skill that saves the party belongs on a tanks bar. We both hate protect, but Cure generates aggro. In times where the healer is (somehow) running low on mp it would be nice to help take some of the heat off them while they regain mp. This will only suffice in mitigating the damage rather then actually healing it up but it could buy the healer some much needed time. I'd still rather be able to raise and risk losing hate for a moment then guaranteed wipe. -
12-02-2013, 01:47 PMTaneshimaPopura
Your Cure 2 will only be more potent than Stoneskin if cast on a non tank. Proshell is meant to be provided by a WHM, take that away then the SCH & WHM synergy balance tips. Holy is not a base conjurer skill, if taking your Magic Potency it is worst than your Circle of Scorn, and the cast time makes it impossible to cast in situation where you need multiple enemy stun. Yes Raise in combat, but can you cast it in the first place without being interrupted? Cover is a good skill but too limited usage due to the coding of the skill and most bosses having cleave attacks until they fix that Duration increase or CD reduction means nothing if cover is going to make you as squishy as the BLM you are covering and your CDs do not reduce the covered damage.
I fail to see why you would want to use Riot Blade in a solo situation, out current mana usage is either Flash or Stoneskin neither of which you'd use much in solo content. Sure giving it more damage is nice and all but Riot Blade is TP ineffective in the first place it would have to be a substantial potency increase to really replace RoH combo or unless they give it a step 3 combo.
If a paladin was made to be able to heal 75% strength of a WHM I'd dare say things will get really broken and you get to see Paladin soloing contents not meant to be solo-ed. -
12-02-2013, 03:46 PMsaber_alter
just going to take this slow...
cure II - completely unneeded. my average heal for cure is 250, cure II would still be less useful than stoneskin (which i find better for tanks than cure anyway, as it prevents damage from coming through than heals after the fact.) as a person playing a mitigation based class, i would rather have a hard hitting move mitigated with stoneskin than self heal it after. trust me, cure II on paladin less useful than you think it would be.
proshell: scholar doesn't get it either, i don't see why paladin should get special treatment. (proshell only adds a magical damage resist buff anyway)
holy flare: no. it doesn't even fit in the class anyway. lore wise and gameplay wise. lore wise because paladins (knights) in this game do not have access to white magic whatsoever, and gameplay wise because the way holy is designed is meant to be a defensive skill for healers. in addition it, as someone said above, would be effectively useless with paladin's weak magical potency stat (and we already have 3 interrupt moves, we don't need a fourth).
combat rez: lets keep it with the healers and summoner. if i have the time to drop a rez on someone as a tank, i'm doing it wrong. too easy to interrupt mid-combat anyway.
cover: would rather negate magical damage as well.
riot blade: it needs a 3rd skill in its combo instead. other than that its just easier to wait a few seconds for the MT (if in a raid) to build hate and then rage away.
pretty much sums up my opinion.Quote:
If a paladin was made to be able to heal 75% strength of a WHM I'd dare say things will get really broken and you get to see Paladin soloing contents not meant to be solo-ed.
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12-03-2013, 04:09 AMTehKloppy01
Honestly, I think our cross class skills from Conjurer are fine for the most part. In fact these all fall in line with almost the same spells used by the first Paladin seen in the series, Cecil Harvey. The only thing I would probably change is swapping Protect for Esuna, cause debuffs suck and it would more beneficial in a party situation. I will agree that Cover needs to be changed to be more appealing, like was mentioned earlier in negating all damage rather than physical. As for Riot Blade, I would like to see a third ability combo off of this skill, mainly for variety sakes. But damage wise Riot Blade only does 30 less damage that Rage of Halone for combo potency. Damage wise we have sufficient self buffs through Sword Oath and Fight or Flight. In short, the reason why we do so little damage is because we take ages to kill.
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12-03-2013, 04:26 AMEnfarious
I agree sort of with most of what you've said.
The well established identity of Paladins in the Final Fantasy franchise has been lost in this iteration. Somehow we've all but lost the ability to cure, raise, buff, and otherwise support a party.
Of course this has made us into a simple "knight" class analogous to what many know from other games, RPG and MMORPG alike, which is probably viewed as "good" by some as it means the majority of people understand it without thinking too hard. Of course to long time FF players, we are interestingly a minority in the gaming world even in an FF game, it feels all wrong.
Paladin should have a useful cure, not one cast on itself though, Holy Succor from 1.0 was a good example. Cast on yourself it wasn't worth the MP most of the time, cast on another it was potent and also healed you, generating a good amount of enmity in the process.
Battle raises should also be a Paladin thing, casting raise in an "Oh shit" moment after popping Hallowed Ground can turn a wipe into a win, and is what Paladins do.
Due to the 2x tank nature of this game, where one is often found in a DPS role a change to Sword Oath to generate less enmity from all attacks would be great, and seeing a Riot Blade > Shield Swipe[or a diff attack] combo that isn't an enmity generator would be nice. I mean really, we have ALOT of rarely used, or never used skills sitting there.
Holy isn't needed, but to balance against steel cyclone probably wouldn't be terrible, Circle of Scorn alone doesn't compare to War AoE output, honestly idc about that very much though.
I'd really like to see a useful Cure variant, Battle Raise, and Cover modified to be useful, again this is what Paladins do, they support parties by keeping enmity, healing, buffing, and when shit goes sideways covering the weaker members, pulling out the "Oh shit save a party button" and tossing the dead healer a raise.
Except that Cecil's cure, and every other Paladin's, was actually useful, ours is like one of the adhesive portions of a bandaid, we don't even get the "good" pad in the middle lol.Quote:
Originally Posted by TehKloppy01
A change there, and to Sword Oath to make it more viable, and to Cover (which I think everyone can agree with) would go a long long way to bringing it back to it's roots.
As for damage, it's not way way off, but a 3 hit combo maybe with less potency than RoH but a buff/debuff (a slashing damage increase for the pld perhaps):
As they are:
RoH combo (str debuff to mob) = 150+200+260 = 610
Riot combo = 150+230 = 380
For an equal number of GCDs (6 means 3 full Riots, 2 full RoH) you end up at:
RoH 610*2 = 1220
Riot 380*3 = 1140
Your DPS in a fight that lasts for just 6 GCDs is barely reduced, but over any significant time it's pretty big. Having a proper DPS combo while in sword oath and off tanking would help this significantly.
As they could be:
RoH combo = 150+200+260 = 610
Shield Swipe combo (10% slashing damage increase to pld) = 150+210+240 = 600
For an equal number of GCDs (6 means 2 full Shield Swipes, 2 full RoHs) you end up at:
RoH 610*2 = 1220
Shield Swipe 600*2 = 1200
You get a little less potency per combo, but with the damage increase your overall DPS would still be higher, but no enmity boost at all. Cycling between Shield > RoH keeps your buff up so RoH enmity gains could be boosted slightly, of course off tanking this could get you into some trouble so the Shield combo would remain the better choice more often than not. -
12-03-2013, 05:03 AMLemon8orNot gonna do much with how much mind you have.Quote:
Originally Posted by Taj
What about SCH then? They might as well have proshell. It's fine as is.Quote:
Originally Posted by Taj
Because it's not iconic for a Paladin? You already have Flash that blinds.Quote:
Originally Posted by Taj
There're plenty of reasons to. As dps, there is less chance the casting will get interrupted. As a tank, there're plenty of chances you will.Quote:
Originally Posted by Taj
Its potency is in-line with warrior's middle skill potency. What you need is a finisher and split that STR debuff from RoH.Quote:
Originally Posted by Taj
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12-03-2013, 05:14 AMEhayte
I, too, wanted to be a specialty off-tank when I rolled my PLD. However, you can't "have it all".
- If you give battle rez to PLD, you are taking away from a SMN's usefulness.
- If you give us Proshell, you are taking away (a sliver of) WHM's usefulness.
- If you give us a DPS combo, you are taking away the utility of a WAR to do respectable DPS as a tank.
- CureII I don't hate, but Stoneskin is better.
- Holy...meh its totally unnecessary, isn't the cast time really long? "Wait, but give us a unique skill. Like, an AE damage ability. It doesn't even have to stun or bind, it could just add a DoT onto each target it hits!!!" >.>
- Cover does kind of suck, namely because you take damage at the other chars rate. I have more of a problem with the range than the CD or duration.
I WILL say, I wish we had Esuna. I would give up Cure, Protect, Mercy Stroke, Bloodbath and Foresight for Esuna, lol. My little idea (like 2 months ago) was to take away Cover and Shield Swipe, and give us a 6min CD, others only cure for 50% of HP that would cure 51% (rounded up) of all status ailments. i.e. BLM is @ 2%hp and has heavy, we hit...Lay on Hands or whatever you want to call it...and they are now at 52% without heavy. -
12-03-2013, 07:04 AMKristianFortNox
Don't change the cross class but why not change states like Cure-MIND into Cure- STRENGTH
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12-03-2013, 07:14 AMSteeled
Still, I'd love paladins to have a decent heal. This can/should be prohibitive on MP or just by spell cooldown. Perhaps not a heal directly, but a regen, because this wouldn't be as potent in saving a life.
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12-03-2013, 08:22 AMFyreus
I'm not trying to heal for 700, i want to heal for 500. That 500 or battle rez or Succor would help make the difference in a battle. That being said I'd love to see more synergy between paladin and warriors. There's a delicate balance here that's hard to deal with, but some tank-only auras for tanks would be nice to have provided they only work with pld/war are in party.
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12-03-2013, 08:43 AMMomoOG
Paladin just doesn't feel like the FF paladin, and let be honest, one of the main reasons people play this game is for classic FF classes/jobs. I was so disappointed with the design of the Pld that I switched to Mnk after reaching 50.
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12-03-2013, 11:32 AMTaj
Really happy some old FF fans started posting in this thread agreeing with me. I feel some of our other players are ignorant as to what a Paladin in the Final Fantasy universe was. I mean saying Holy isn't attached to a Paladin is just plain ignorance. I agree with you especially Momo, Paladin just feels like the standard Knight class (not even Knight in FF universe) in any run-of-the-mill MMORPG. I want my versatility back. Or if you're going to make me play a dumb downed Knight/Paladin hybrid I want my breaker skills.
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12-03-2013, 11:50 AMLeironIf you want a party where ll anyone does is nod their head in agreement, make your own forum.Quote:
Originally Posted by Taj
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12-03-2013, 12:01 PMTajAnd how did you get that out of my quote? Like really. I'm happy fans of a gaming series I myself am a fan of also agree with my opinion. If you read my replies throughout the thread I thanked people who DIDN'T agree with me for their opinion. Lei you need to calm down.Quote:
Originally Posted by Leiron
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12-03-2013, 12:13 PMDeusteele
The Paladin in FFXIV feels very close to what Knight/Paladin have always been in the Final Fantasy. A heavily armored defender with vestigial healing ability. You were never healing with a Knight/Paladin during a fight and getting ahead. Their spells were meant to be used to conserve White Mage magic slots or MP during dungeon crawls.
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12-03-2013, 12:46 PMLeironBecause that is what you said.Quote:
Originally Posted by Taj
I am always calm, just direct.Quote:
Originally Posted by Taj
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12-03-2013, 01:00 PMTajEven in the quote you quoted I stated I am glad old FF players agree with me. I did not state that I wanted everyone to agree with me. 2/10Quote:
Originally Posted by Leiron
@Deusteele: A limited cover and aggro abilities does not make a FF paladin. If it were meant to be a knight, where are the breaker debuff skills? A gimpy cure, gimpy protect, gimpy raise offers little to party support. -
12-03-2013, 01:03 PMViridianaJust went to FF Wikia. Typed in Paladin, clicked on the links to all the Paladins/Knights in all the games. Only 2 of them across all the games can cast Holy. Beatrix in IX, if you count her as a PLD (and she's only temporarily playable, at that), and XI's PLD job. Then I did the same for White Mage. Ten White Mages across the games can cast Holy. Three of those are actually Summoners, too, which means that Holy is better represented as a SMN spell than it is as a PLD spell.Quote:
Originally Posted by Taj
Ignorance, indeed. -
12-03-2013, 01:04 PMLeironImplicit not explicit, but he if that wasn't your intention we'll leave it at that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Taj
Except that in FF games a Paladin was never comparable to a full healer.Quote:
Originally Posted by Taj
They always had gimpy capabilities compared to a true healer in the FF games.
Heck, Cecil in FF4 dd not have any breaker abilities. -
12-03-2013, 01:21 PMDeusteeleUnderlined: Yes, yes it does. In fact that is all the Knight/Paladin job is in Final Fantasy. Cover and being in top slot in forward group, is what they are meant for. And as for the breaker skills. Those have been passed around to different jobs within the games metaverse that "Knights" don't have a particular claim to them. They are just as often granted to the Soldier and Fighter jobs then Knights.Quote:
Originally Posted by Taj
And here's something to blow your mind; Paladins in FF:TA/A2 are portrayed as dual wield attackers in official artwork.
To get back on topic. PLD doesn't have better cross-class skills due to GLD being rebuilt for the ground up to become PLD. The developers had decided to force PLD to be tied to CNJ. This lead to GLD having a full suite of dps abilities to compensate for only being able to draw from the other tank based DoW. -
12-03-2013, 02:01 PMTajThey also wear turbans, your point being? The Knight Job and Paladin job were two different job classes. Paladin are more an evolved version of the knight with mediocre healing abilities and support skills. You seem to have the idea I want a Paladin with all the healing power of a White Mage. I merely want a Paladin with more support skills to maximize my allies DPS potential and ensure stability of the party. Many Paladins would like a stronger heal and a functional raise. If we're going to talk about what the Paladin role in iterations of the series why don't we mention the Holy sword skills (Seiken) in Final Fantasy 9, Tactics, Tactics Advanced that would fall under not only dps but ranged dps?Quote:
Originally Posted by Deusteele
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12-03-2013, 02:12 PMDeusteele
Players have cleared all content with Paladin's tanks as they currently are. If you need 'more" to do the game I would suspect that the issue with closer to a PEBCAK then with class design.
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12-03-2013, 02:56 PMLex_LugerYou realize your shield swipe combo is completely unviable as a DPS combo because shield swipe requires you to proc a block to use it in the first place.Quote:
Originally Posted by Enfarious
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12-03-2013, 02:58 PMTaj
The issue isn't functionality, it's about playstyle and versatility. People have been able to clear all content as warriors yet people were unsatisfied (for good reason) and it was changed. This topic was about personal dissatisfaction with the cross class skill set based on previous iterations of Paladins in the Final Fantasy series. I am by no means saying "HUR DUR PALADINS 2 HARD I WANT TO BE ABLE TO SOLO EVERYTHING IN HARD MODE". If that's what you're getting you either need to read more carefully or remove your bias.
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12-03-2013, 07:50 PMSteeled
There's a difference between mediocre and not-worth-casting.
Stoneskin is mediocre (aside from idle time during a fight, like Garuda teleport [add-phases], titan after jump, ifrit after jump). It has it's uses but it's hardly game breaking. Aside from pre-empting damage, which is not so easy because the animation-complete-crap, a pld is try to contribute to the kill.
Cure is not-worth-casting. You are better off using the GCD to contribute to damage than to try to cast a cure upon yourself or anyone.
I've saved a few Garudas because of struggling healers, by spamming stoneskin. If cure were equipped instead, I wouldn't even bother casting it. -
12-03-2013, 10:56 PMEnfariousSo I should have said "Rework Shield Swipe to be a part of a combo." first. Meaning, make it no longer a proc that we ignore anyway. It's a waste of a GCD that doesn't effect most of what we care about stopping from using abilities anyway, a useless ability added to a bar so we can wonder why we have half a bar of uselessness.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lex_Luger
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12-03-2013, 11:56 PMEhayteSo the idea is the best tank in the game gets the second best support in the game and the 3rd best healing/party stability in the game?Quote:
Originally Posted by Taj
I'm sorry - I totally understand that your gripe is with the playstyle of the class, but before you go singing doom and gloom about how the PLD doesn't feel like a PLD, do you think you could go get to level 50 and then check back in? I am not being sarcastic or snippy at all, but its a different game at level 50, and you will find yourself using the stoneskin you worked very hard for a lot, and using cover more often, and a plethora of other "Support" type work.
At level 41 (or whatever you are as of this moment) your experience is not indicative of what the game has to offer for PLDs. While I agree I wish there was one or two extra elements of White Magic to the Paladin, you also have to remember that this is a different game than I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, and XIII. The PLD story line mentions VERY little about magical infusion of PLD defining them, its more about honor, and being a more or less mundane guard for the Ul'Dah palace.
Circling back to my original point, I think you are asking for too much. In traditional FF games, you could have the class that could cast Eden as a GF, attack for 9999, and use Cure3>All to heal the party for 7k+ each, because you had a 3-4 man party dynamic operating on a sophisticated turn-based platform in which you had to manage all of the characters; you needed to be able to pull off powerful moves every time you could touch a character.
That is not the case in this MMO, you get 1 character who needs to specialize dramatically in their given role during a dungeon, and there is no need to have a wide swathe of impressive abilities. If you had that, everyone else would be pretty bored : D PLDs don't need stabilizing magic or support magic because they would break the crap out of end-game. Even something like a small group heal without cutting away some of their mitigation (which they need, desperately) would tilt the survivability scales to an unreasonable level in most encounters. -
12-04-2013, 12:12 AMSteeled
I'll say it for him, PLD (at 50, been 50 since a week after launch) doesn't feel like any other paladin I've ever played. Flash is the only native use for MP.
I've never seen a paladin tank in any game be a competent healer, but they still had worthwhile heals. Both can be achieved at the same time by being prohibitively expensive on MP and/or long cooldowns (10,15s). -
12-04-2013, 02:35 AMTaneshimaPopura
Basically. Stoneskin is not something I'd want to lose. I could live without Foresight and Bloodbath. People just don't know how potent Stoneskin is in a near death situation if you keep chain casting it. Without CDs chain casting Stoneskin while tanking dual Dreadnaughts or Twintania while healer copes with the damage makes a world of a difference.
But in all seriousness what other base class skill you are looking forward to get? The next closest relation class would be Lancer, sure Keen Flurry is nice, Blood for Blood could some spice in both ways, Invigorate can get your out of a TP pinch. What other cross skill do you really look forward to is my question in the first place. -
12-04-2013, 03:53 AMEhayteI think that you are under utilizing the effectiveness of stone skin, and that you are asking for a little too much : DQuote:
Originally Posted by Steeled
Just my personal opinion. -
12-04-2013, 05:11 AMSteeled
I'll edit my post with this addendum. I'm not asking for that kind of heal, I was just pointing out the negligible impact that a heal with those parameters would have even vs Ifrit, since they're trying to stop jobs/classes from having such potent combinations as they had in 1.2~.
I played XI for years and my healing never once felt overpowered. Several times, my cure 3/4s saved lives but it was at such a high mp cost, and battle dynamics (timing properly, likely to get interrupted) that I wasn't even noticeably contributing to healing. In XI's heyday, a Cure IV cost uh.. 1/5th of my mp (hume, no mp merits) and healed for 1/4th of my HP.
This is a different combat system, true, but heals, regens, something, could be modeled to bring paladin back some...paladin.
I've thought about maybe a trait that made paladin white magic instant cast but doubled or quadrupled the cooldown (so 5, 10 second cooldown for cure, stoneskin) but think that might be OP, in stoneskin's case. -
12-04-2013, 05:23 AMBadRNG
Surprised no one has mentioned the Japanese name for PLD in this game is simply Knight, and has a lot in common with the FF3 Knight. Defensive based warrior with some weak white magic.
Frankly it doesn't matter though what other variations of jobs could do in past FF games, as what skills were available to who changed often between games. We are not Cecil, blessed by a holy power. We're heroes following an ancient line of protectors of the Uld'an royal family. Lore wise we have more in line with actual real life paladins than any in the FF games. -
12-04-2013, 05:48 AMTzain
Of the ones the OP listed, the only one I thought "Yeah, I can dig that" is the combat raise.
Honestly, I think the raise in combat should be baked into the ability to begin with, and then the trait makes it not cause/shorten weakness (if you even want to bother with a trait at all for that, im not convinced it's worth the slot.)
I mean, that spell is crazy. Long cast time + high mp cost + locked animation + low target hp + no target mp + need to rebuff + Weakness debuff to get you killed again. And then you stick a restriction that it cant be cast in combat on top of all that? It's a wonder we even bother rezzing people at all!
Do you know what the other "proper" names are? I've had this feeling that quite a few names are being misused.Quote:
Originally Posted by BadRNG
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12-06-2013, 01:13 PMCassandaria
After reading this, I wanted to add something concerning my previous post. I don't feel a cure is useless on a paladin, just using the cross class abilities from conjurer is mostly useless because of your low mind. However, like in 1.x I would like to see a healing ability with a bonus to it (like healing the paladin as well) or the ability they had that, if cure was cast on the paladin then regen was thrown on the entire party for a short span (I don't remember the name, but it was an awesome ability if used properly). Those two would add a bit more flavor to what is already a pretty solid foundation.