Are Paladins even worth it?

Title says it all gentlemen and ladies.

After reading along the forums and watching some you-tube videos the overall feel, is that Paladins are just crap and shouldn't really be a class because they can't close to what the warrior can do. I honestly haven't had a problem with, them sure sometimes its tricky to play them. To be clear, (( because I know Paladins are 1, and two step easy )) I meant managing your mana in large mob pulls so you don't burn out of TP or mana.

My question stands, is the Paladin job worth leveling and playing in-game or should I just quit now and save myself the trouble of not being allowed into raids because of the fact my class is worthless.

Your post is broken. Questioning the value of a Paladin?! How dare thee!

It's not worthless and as my main is a Paladin, I've never been 'turned away' from something. >.>

WAR and PLD can both be crap: It depends on the person playing it.

Edit: After the rage.

It's really up to the player on how it's played and more importantly, does the person playing that class really understand how it all works?

I'm leveling WAR right now because, well, it's easy... fast queues and I suppose it's nice to see the other side of the coin when it comes to PLD vs. WAR tanking.

When the expansion comes out, there will be some upheaval with DRK coming out... but personally, I'll never stop playing Paladin. :)

http://www.vgmemes.com/wp-content/up...it-210x210.png

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Originally Posted by Snakevudo

Title says it all gentlemen and ladies.

After reading along the forums and watching some you-tube videos the overall feel, is that Paladins are just crap and shouldn't really be a class because they can't close to what the warrior can do. I honestly haven't had a problem with, them sure sometimes its tricky to play them. To be clear, (( because I know Paladins are 1, and two step easy )) I meant managing your mana in large mob pulls so you don't burn out of TP or mana.

My question stands, is the Paladin job worth leveling and playing in-game or should I just quit now and save myself the trouble of not being allowed into raids because of the fact my class is worthless.

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There aren't really any worthless classes on FFXIV. It's one of the things I love about the game after having played games with heavy class discrimination. If you enjoy playing Paladin, then stick with it. Most raid parties take one paladin and one warrior so you don't have to worry the slightest bit about being unwanted. A diverse raid party is the best raid party because of the vast array of different buffs, debuffs, and abilities offered by different classes.

Paladin is considered the easier of the two tanks to play for various reasons, including all of their defensive CD's being off the GCD and the fact that they only have one combo (Riot Blade is really only useful for mass pulls if you need Moar Flash™). Warrior requires a little more foreknowledge because of Inner Beast (one of your go-to defensive abilities) being on the GCD. Warrior has a very aggressive tanking style with a few damage reduction abilities, a lot of self-heals and a massive HP pool. Paladin is more of your classic turtle - lots and lots of abilities that reduce incoming damage including blocking with your shield and a 10 second invulnerability to just about everything.

Honestly, you're at the point where Paladin is kind of a pain in the ass to use effectively. You don't have your tanking stance yet but many DPS are starting to get their stronger abilities, making it harder to hold hate off of them. Stick with it until level 40 when you get Shield Oath and it gets much much better. I started off as a Paladin and I intend to stay as one. I've leveled up and played other classes (including Warrior) but I always come back to my Pally. ^^

Most Raidgroups would always bring both tanks. And in the case of solo tanking, some, if not many PUGs prefer Paladin over Warrior because it's hard to "suck" playing a Paladin when maintanking. You can also maintain a high level of raid awareness and call out mechanics because your rotation is, well, the most simple one out of all classes.

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Originally Posted by Kaitlen

Your post is broken. Questioning the value of a Paladin?! How dare thee!


Edit: After the rage.

It's really up to the player on how it's played and more importantly, does the person playing that class really understand how it all works?
I'll never stop playing Paladin. :)

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Thanks, you are right I have tryed other classes without much want to keep playing them. Overall this is has been the best class to my taste and choice, when I was playing world of warcraft I played a warrior and enjoy it to no end. I've always enjoyed tank classes moreover the less assault driven type tank classes. Slow and steady, I was letting others outlook on the class drive my own thoughts towards it. At the end of the day your right, play what you want and be the best at it.

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Originally Posted by Ashkendor

Honestly, you're at the point where Paladin is kind of a pain in the ass to use effectively. You don't have your tanking stance yet but many DPS are starting to get their stronger abilities, making it harder to hold hate off of them. Stick with it until level 40 when you get Shield Oath and it gets much much better. I started off as a Paladin and I intend to stay as one. I've leveled up and played other classes (including Warrior) but I always come back to my Pally. ^^

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Yeah that is another problem I was having also, I find it hard to grasp when I am always losing hate but I had the same thoughts when I looked over my spell book. Overall thank you for the feed back I will stick it out until level 40 at the very least. :]

Both tanks are viable, WAR requires more skill in most vital situations and so you have to be able to trust your WAR. So while PLD may not be "better" it's often "preferred". I've seen WARs survive some crazy things without a healer. But on the other hand, 9 times out of 10 if my tank is a WAR and I'm WHM, my DPS is lowered because most DF WARs just drop like a rock. PLD is consistent, sturdy and predictable and so in big pulls we move faster, because I can spam Holy without my tank dying during my first cast. PLD's also my main and I've never heard of anyone not wanting one in content. You're more likely to find 2 PLDs than 2 WARs. But definitely I would prefer one of each.

You're reading some very wrong guides if they question PLD viability.

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Originally Posted by Ashkendor

Honestly, you're at the point where Paladin is kind of a pain in the ass to use effectively. You don't have your tanking stance yet but many DPS are starting to get their stronger abilities, making it harder to hold hate off of them. Stick with it until level 40 when you get Shield Oath and it gets much much better.

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This is imo the best answer for the OP, PLD is the only job that feels left behind at level 30, but winds will change to your fortune at level 40 and all your fears of PLD not being viable at level 50 are unjustified you will see.

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Originally Posted by Snakevudo

Paladins are just crap and shouldn't really be a class

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Well I guess I'll go take a flying leap off Madman Bridge.

Well, IMO, Shield Swipe should be off the GCD.

The Pally has some issues while leveling up, cause he has no aoe attack or DoT, but as you get to Lv. 50, you've got it all.

All the Job skills of Pally should be in another order too. Shield Oath should be Lv. 30. Sword Oath at Lv. 35. Then Cover, Spirits and Hallowed Ground. Would be easier to level up like this. But then again, once you're Lv. 50, it doesn't matter. Pally Rocks. (But WAR is better)

Honestly there are a hundred posts about which class is better out there. I've leveled both to 50 and ran both through dungeons and raids and honestly I don't see a giant difference between the two classes 99% of the time. The other 1% of the time its a party make-up thing or the content just lends itself better to one tank.

At the end of the day play the one that holds your interest better, because that's the one your gonna push to become the best.

For me that's PLD. If the raid or group doesn't want a PLD then there's a million out there that will.

They should just swap when you get Shield Oath and Sword Oath so we no longer have to see all of the "how i tankz as paladon?" threads.

I don't expect Paladin's to ever be useless. Even if they give Dark Knight the Halone debuff, Paladin's will still have a shield. That shield means a lot to mitigation, and really it's the defining aspect of the class in my opinion.

Now, they may not be useless, but they are a little dull to play. But they're also reliable. I like to pull out my shield when I want to be lazy. I pull out my Axe when I want to wreck some people and goof around. Really it comes down to play style and preference. When Dark Knights come out it'll be the same situation. You figure out if you want to:
- Chill while tanking
- Crush your enemies and see them driven before you.
- Manage your MP while you do cool poses with a big sword (bout all I know of Dark Knight so far. lol)

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Originally Posted by Roxas_Andrade

Well, IMO, Shield Swipe should be off the GCD.

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I dunno why everyone wants this, your TP is going to get destroyed.

I'm getting really tired of these type of threads. I don't know if they are being serious anymore or just trying to troll and start up a hate war?

BTW if you are current on your gear it is extremely easy to hold on to hate... I don't know what these new players are doing having so much trouble with tanking.

99% of the time, WAR vs PLD is a matter of personal preference. While some people (mostly WAR mains) make fun of PLDs for having a simple 1-2-3 rotation, that doesn't mean PLDs aren't good. Both tank classes have the same eHP. Both tank classes are perfectly valid for most content.

There is plenty of endgame content that actually prefers PLD because of the PLD 6-second stun. PLDs can also silence, which WARs cannot do. That is not to say that there isn't content that prefers WAR, who can do much more burst DPS while tanking when necessary and has better AoE aggro generation.

For (50+) dungeons, some people prefer WARs for their AoE threat superiority. Personally, I prefer PLDs for their invincibility move and stronger CDs (with longer CD timers). It allows me to do gigantic pulls (like the entire basement of Haukke HM all at once), and if the DPS is good enough, I can survive even with a bad healer. A WAR would be much more dependent on the healer. Also, I love being able to use Cover. Instead of trying to get aggro on something that really wants to eat the healer's face (or a DPS who focustargets when they should be AoEing), I can just throw in a cover and the mob will be dead before cover wears off. Also, being able to stoneskin myself after establishing solid aggro is really nice mitigation in endgame raid content, though many PLDs don't do that for some reason I don't get.

As others have said, they are both very viable and worth it, so much so that as a tank I highly suggest leveling and gearing both so you can play as either as needed.

Which one is better will depend on your own play style preference. WAR tanks offensively while a PLD is your more traditional defensively played tank (although I love playing PLD as offensively as I can).

Each one shines a bit more than the other in certain areas and certain situations, but for the most part they are quite balanced.

My only real issues with PLD are more along the lines of group/raid utility such as the lack of a "target takes more of X damage" debuff, Pacification and Blind being kind of worthless post 50 since everything is apparently immune to them, Cover being physical damage only and a lack of a full second combo with riot blade.

Also I know there is a huge stigma of PLD being simple and boring, which is true if played at its most base level, but if you work oath dancing into your PLD tanking strategy it definitely makes things more engaging.

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Originally Posted by Snakevudo

Paladins are just crap and shouldn't really be a class .

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Yeah!
Paladin since my day 1 in this game and received 0 commendations so far.
Everytime I do a roullete, players just lol and vote kick me.
Titan refuses to attack me. He kills my whole party and sit there: "You can't do anything with your stick", he says. And take a nap.
In pvp, my enemies change class to any discipline of hand and still kill me with yours little hammers, then begin lol.
NPCs refuse to sell things to me.
I don't ride my chocobo anymore. My chocobo rides me.
There is no more loldrg, just lolpld.

Yeah! Shouldn't be a class... Sure...

/end sarcasm

https://warosu.org/data/biz/img/0001...3180459848.jpg

I play both PLD and WAR, and I would personally describe them as:

PLD = low risk, low reward
WAR = high risk, high reward

But both are just as effective when it comes to main and off-tanking (when played correctly, of course).

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Originally Posted by RadRyder

I play both PLD and WAR, and I would personally describe them as:

PLD = low risk, low reward
WAR = high risk, high reward

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I MT T10-13 in Sword Oath. I'm just saiyan. High risk high rewards.

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Originally Posted by SpookyGhost

I dunno why everyone wants this, your TP is going to get destroyed.

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i agree. They would have to lower the Tp costs of it to even used all time time.

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Originally Posted by SpookyGhost

I dunno why everyone wants this, your TP is going to get destroyed.

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Originally Posted by Lemuel81

i agree. They would have to lower the Tp costs of it to even used all time time.

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I cant say. I'm not a Lv.50 Pally yet. I'd like shield swipe to be off the GCD because i'm used to have an extra attack like WAR do. At the point I'm now(Lv.41), I don't have mp problems. Is it really an issue later on? What could drain TP so much?

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Originally Posted by Roxas_Andrade

I cant say. I'm not a Lv.50 Pally yet. I'd like shield swipe to be off the GCD because i'm used to have an extra attack like WAR do. At the point I'm now(Lv.41), I don't have mp problems. Is it really an issue later on? What could drain TP so much?

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Many of the fights at endgame are pretty long (8 mins plus of spamming your rotation).

With that said, bards are often playing paeon for melee anyway.

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Originally Posted by Roxas_Andrade

I cant say. I'm not a Lv.50 Pally yet. I'd like shield swipe to be off the GCD because i'm used to have an extra attack like WAR do. At the point I'm now(Lv.41), I don't have mp problems. Is it really an issue later on? What could drain TP so much?

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The Rage of Halone combo costs a total of 63.33 TP per GCD and you gain 60 TP per 3 second 'tick.' With a 2.5 second GCD this translates into a net loss of ~13.33 TP every GCD. If in a tank and spank fight or phase (i.e. one where the tank does not disengage from the target) that lasts more than about 2 minutes and 50 seconds the Paladin will run out of TP if only using that Combo. Shield Swipe adds about 10 TP per use when it procs extending the TP lifespan by about 2.5 seconds per use

As for off-GCD attacks, Paladin picks those up at 45 (Spirits Within) and 50 (Circle of Scorn).

Once you've got a solid hold of aggro it's a good idea to make regular use of shield swipe for the purpose of TP management. It's not just long spamming of your RoH combo, but also use of Shield Bash to interrupt a cast or mitigate damage, and shield lob to grab aggro that can deplete your TP. I hear a lot of PLDs complaining about mp so they can flash more, but personally I depend more on my TP based skills and have more TP drain than mp, unless I'm doing full-room pulls which I haven't done in a while. So shield bash off the GCD would be killer, not only because you'd be losing a tool to manage TP, but also because you'd be using more TP off the GCD.

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Originally Posted by Ultimatecalibur

snip

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The big problem comes with bosses that it's tank and spank and have a magic attack as their basic attack, making your Shield Swipe and block stat completely useless. Here is were using Flash against a boss comes in handy even if you are just using it against 1 target: you stop using TP and instead use MP to keep increasing your enmity and at the same time regenerate your TP back due to not using it.

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Originally Posted by BlueThunder

The big problem comes with bosses that it's tank and spank and have a magic attack as their basic attack, making your Shield Swipe and block stat completely useless. Here is were using Flash against a boss comes in handy even if you are just using it against 1 target: you stop using TP and instead use MP to keep increasing your enmity and at the same time regenerate your TP back due to not using it.

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Was just explaining the math behind the drain.

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Originally Posted by Feylie

I MT T10-13 in Sword Oath. I'm just saiyan. High risk high rewards.

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You 100% Sword Oath 13? Probably pushing 3 Ahk morns? (all buffs on first, WAR HG 2nd, PLD HG 3rd?)

If you have solid aggro as a PLD, can't you just not use TP for a while to regenerate it? If you aren't in a timed burn phase, your DPS isn't contributing THAT much. Just do an RoH combo once every 20 seconds for the debuff. That's 190 TP per 20 seconds when you get 60 TP per 3 seconds for a gain of 210 TP per 20 seconds. If you really want to keep doing some DPS, you can just swap to sword oath during that too. Once you hit ~700 TP, you can go back to the full rotation.

But, if the boss's primary attack is int-based, your debuff doesn't even help, so you can just autoattack until you have TP back.

Shield Swipe's only purpose is extra DPS in long boss fights where the boss uses physical attacks. It's extremely niche, since Pacification doesn't have a purpose late game, and it doesn't have an enmity multiplier like Savage Blade and Rage of Halone.

If you stop DPSing when you have solid aggro you're playing PLD sub optimally. Bulwark+Shield Swipe if you really don't need to be generating enmity right now is a perfectly viable way to get yourself back plenty of TP if you've got it timed right.

The other option is to give your healers more breathing room by casting Stoneskin on yourself a few times, and then they could be doing more damage during that time, but literally standing there doing nothing helps no one and makes the fight last longer (even if only a couple seconds or so longer)

Yes, PLD in Tank stance does the worst damage in the game, but that is not an excuse to push what damage you can do to it's limit.

Oh yeah, I knew I was forgetting something. Stoneskinning yourself, or other party members if your party is keeping you stoneskinned, is not a bad idea. But you do have to time it right. Unless I'm mistaken, you can't block, dodge, or parry while casting Stoneskin, so you take increased damage during it. But you can cast it between boss abilities and just soak a couple auto attacks during the cast, and it's worth it.

But there is no difference between slowing yourself down a bit to regen TP and not using skills at all for 15 seconds at a stretch to regen TP. Either way, you wind up using the same number of skills over the same period of time expending the same total TP. One way is just more burst and the other is more spread out. Burst is generally better during burn phases, and both are equal apart from that.

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Originally Posted by SirTaint

You 100% Sword Oath 13? Probably pushing 3 Ahk morns? (all buffs on first, WAR HG 2nd, PLD HG 3rd?)

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^ correct.

Not quite sure if I'm grasping the reasons people want the GCD off of shield bash, or the latter of if it will annihilate paladins TP to nothing very quickly.

I do understand these key points.

• GCD causes late to the punch stuns.

• TP costs are high, eats up if used consistently.

Taking a look at both tanks stuns;

Shield Bash; GCD, potency 110, 6 second stun upgraded
Brutal Swings; 20 second CD, potency 50, 5 second stun upgraded

If we were to remove the GCD of shield bash, what exactly would happen... Would it cause for a major TP drop as then paladins would be spamming it in the GCD along with circle of scorn and spirits within? Or would it be situational as an "OH S-" button for boss and mob mechanics?

If my understanding on development of the moves such as Shield Bash on Paladin being on the GCD, and Warrior having Brutal Swings off the GCD.

/post over the 1000 char limit (following post will be the rest of my spiel)

In the standpoint of loloutofTP, we are wrong in the sort.. Requirements of anything off the GCD must have a cooldown (15 seconds, 20 seconds, etc) Buffs, debuffs, and even stuns.
It would place it in a way such that it'd be a Brutal Swings clone.

No TP cost, potency low as between 50 and 65, and the stun ranging at 5 or 6 seconds, at a 20 second CD

That is all it would really boil down to if it were off the GCD, mechanics in development of these moves primarily suit both tanks justifications of on GCD or having a CD.

Shield Swipe != Shield Bash

Unless there's some discussion about Shield Bash I missed.

Oops, lol I think I may have misinterpreted first post on page two. My bad.

</total scrub

Footnote Editz: Though isn't this topic about Paladin in general?

The only time Shield Bash is late to the punch is when you're not anticipating an attack coming. Everything in this game is pretty much 100% scripted, so it's clear when you should be using it. Paladin Stun is one of the best in the game because instead of having to wait 5 GCDs abouts to use it again, Paladins are primed to go right away, allowing them to chain stun.

Never underestimate the value in that.

As for Shield Swipe being off GCD, as I explained earlier it's more for TP efficient/regain of TP. It's point is to do damage while trying to get some of your TP back so you can 1-2-3 more. Everything about PLD is working to facilitate that you're up doing that 1-2-3.

It's the same for Warrior, they just have all of those Wrath Stacks they need to use up as a resource and buffs/debuffs that need applying

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Originally Posted by Feylie

^ correct.

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That's a beautiful thing. My only concern would be the twist+breath combo after each earthshaker but pushing 3 Ahk morns really frees up CDs.

I'm gonna do it next raid day and see how it goes. Whats your gear setup for T13?