Clive's Paladin Compiilation

Welcome to Clive's Paladin Compilation ♪
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Originally this thread was meant as a quick reply to one of the other topics here on the Tank forums. However, as the post I was typing grew in length (enormous length..) I realized this information may be put to better use as a standalone Thread instead. In general this will be a long post about all of the under-used options a Paladin has in their arsenal. Some abilities are woefully condemned by the masses or removed completely from their hot bars. Blasphemy! You may not agree with how useful I think these skills are but hopefully this topic can shine some light on what some of these tools are actually capable of; including their uses in our various raiding environments. Feel free to chime in with your own thoughts!



Background
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I chose Paladin at the launch of 2.0 and have never leveled another main job to either level cap. I've cleared all of my content as a Paladin; including A4S (in 3.0) when the Paladin meta considered us very poor raiders and DPS failures. Currently I'm on the second phase of A8S. After pouring almost three non-stop years into the job here are my thoughts! Enjoy ♪



Sorry for Interrupting ♥
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There are only a few mobs you need to stun. Silence is whatever. Pacify doesn't work for the most part.

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I think people greatly underestimate a Paladins ability to interrupt. Some of these gallant knights simply use Spirits Within and Shield Swipe as tools to increase their DPS and ignore the great interrupting potential they have. So one thing should be cleared up right away. Any enemy ability that can be interrupted can be interrupted by a Paladin.


Abilities can be Pacified, Magic can be Silenced, all of the above can be Stunned, and groups of abilities can be chain-stunned. If a mob has become Stun resistant you can Silence or Pacify. If you just used your Global Cooldown, and you won't be able to Stun an ability in time, you can Silence or Pacify. The sheer number of interrupts you can perform in 60 seconds is enormous. Not to mention that stunning every enemy in a group (for 6 seconds) is a pretty powerful defensive cool down on its own.


Thus, learning what enemy abilities can be Stunned, Silenced, and Pacified is an important part of playing Paladin. It is one of our great strengths and proper usage can greatly determine the outcome of battles; especially during very large pulls. A healer that doesn't have to stop to heal or esuna all of these silly mechanics is going to be able to dish out far more DPS. Melee DPS that don't have to dodge large point-blank AoE's over and over are going to deal far more DPS.


Heavy hitters like Banish III, Dragon's Voice, Ram's Voice, Baleful Roar, and Furore. All can be interrupted as often as you need. Black Nebula spam, Dragonsong spam, Leviathan Hysteria spam, Final Sting spam, Acidic Spray spam. There are so many enemies that are completely de-fanged by a Paladin simply due to your quantity (and quality) of interrupts. Even two enemies casting at the same time can be stopped with a GCD Stun and an OGCD Silence. Once you master the timing and rotations of every enemy (ie. Black Nebula is always cast right after Iron Swing) even the largest of train pulls can become a piece of cake for you and your healers. End-game raiding aside; what's not to love about the ability to prevent every {stoppable} dangerous mechanic in the game as often as you want?


However, Raiding is where the real pain lies and thankfully a Paladins ability to chain-stun mobs for 10 seconds really stands out. A 6 second stun-spam can be a real game changer when your progression party is just barely meeting DPS checks. And so comes the real test; figuring out where all of your interrupts can be used. This opens up many useful raiding scenarios; especially if your party is going for their first clear:


A3S - 9 second stun on Liquid Gaols prevents raid wipes
A3S - 6 second stuns + Silence on multiple Gear Lubricants prevents raid wipes
A4S - Stunning Manipulator legs.
A5S - 9 second stun on Snakes prevents poison mechanic
A6S - Silencing Mindblast
A6S - 6 second stuns on multiple Power Plasma's prevents raid wipes
A6S - 9 second stun on Gobtank prevents Vuln Up
A7S - 9 second stuns on True Heart prevents raid wipes.
A7S - Stunning the Sturmdolls Kugerblitz
A8S - TBD



Enter the Swordmage
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Stoneskin and Clemency are on the verge of very situational use. Almost dead. Protect? Git gud you healers.

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Ahhh, the ever controversial spell-casting side of Paladin. "Back in my day we used our MP bars for Flash! What are these newfangled casting bars you kids came up with!?" Clemency, Stoneskin, and Protect really got a bad reputation during 3.0 when Paladins in general were shunned for any reason people could think of. Did you know: 1 in 3 end-game raiders carried an "lolPLD Bible" in their pocket? [-From the book of "lolStatistics"] However, uncontrary to popular disbelief(¿) , these three spells do save lives and should be on every Paladins hotbar. People die in dungeons. People die in raids. And raid recovery is a part of raid life. Most first clears involve multiple deaths and split second wins. So let's look at these spells one at a time!


Protect
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The main purpose of Protect on Paladin is to take some of the burden off of Healers in mechanic heavy fights. People die and they lose Protect when they are Raised. It's going to happen; a lot. The last phase of A4S for example has three party members blowing themselves up on purpose on Royal Pentacles, over and over, while Wirbelwind is resetting Healer MP to zero... multiple times. A Paladin can handle re-Protecting these party members to ease the healers work load and take needed strain off of their MP.


Simply put, sometimes your healers are just too overworked after a death has occurred, and its during these times when a quick Protect by a Paladin can prevent another raid-wide AoE attack from insta-killing members who just revived. Raid awareness and a quick Protect from a Paladin CAN save a life. Much like being able to Raise on Summoner, there's no reason Protect shouldn't be put to good use to help the healers when they need it.


Opportunity? Paladins have a far easier time re-Protecting people than Healers do. In general, a Paladin is usually main tanking with a clear view of the entire arena as well as a very easy rotation to perform. This provides a Paladin player with an extremely high level of raid awareness compared to a Healer that's trying to keep everyone alive while dancing in the center of the mechanical circus. As far as responsibilities go, a Paladin has all the time in the world to cast a quick Protect once or twice a fight.


Stoneskin
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This one is more for low-level dungeons and end-game Tank Busters with a long-cast bar. If you have this spell set as your very first cross-class skill, you'll be able to use it in the lowest level dungeons even before a White Mage gets access to it. In the same vein as Clemency, this gives you access to a form of self-preservation at levels where Clemency isn't available. If your healer is killed by a mechanic, which happens far more than we'd like it to, Stoneskin spamming can keep you alive for that one extra minute your DPS need to bring the boss down.


For Tankbusters there are many situations where you have tons of time to either Stoneskin yourself, or Stoneskin your Offtank that is about to take a massive hit (or multiple massive hits.) This requires the Tankbuster to have a long cast bar. However, what's nice about this is that if you cast Stoneskin at the beginning of a long cast bar you then have enough time to cast Clemency right at the end, essentially letting you solo-mitigate and solo-heal yourself without any outside assistance. In some cases you no longer even need to use a cool down. It takes practice and memorization of a bosses exact timings, but these spells have some great uses. Some of the longer Tank Busters include:


Thordan EX - Holiest of Holy followed by Holy Bladedance
Sephiroth EX - Phase one fist mechanic
A1S - Hypercompressed Plasma
A3S - Drainage Tethers (casted during phase change downtime)
A8S - Perpetual Ray
etc etc.


Clemency
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The most under-rated tool in the Paladin's kit, by far, multiplied by bacon. Clemency is a complete game changer to those utilizing the spell properly. If you aren't using this spell then there are times you could have saved your party from wiping and didn't. Progression parties are not flawless and Clemency prevents deaths during these learning stages. So what exactly is Clemency capable of? Well, at i240, with a best in slot build, your Clemency crits will be landing for roughly 14k HP with Convalescence. That's 50% of an i240 Paladins Health bar. Being able to cast the spell in 1.5 seconds allows for some pretty spectacular burst healing.


Healing yourself can give a dead Healer the time they need to get back up. It can save your Offtank during a Tankbuster or yourself if you didn't get topped off in time before Perpetual Ray. You can save a DPS with a nasty bleed tick, or yourself if you are in a raid jail with an add that isn't dying fast enough. These situations happen an outrageous amount during progression; if you are actually keeping an eye out for them. You can save more raid wipes then you think, especially with a bit of foresight. Plus, the spell also procs Divine Veil whenever you want it to ♪


Now, when you combine this spell with Convalescence and/or Hallowed Ground and then restore all of your mp back with Riot Blade spamming and Shelltron... your survivability becomes nothing short of exceptional. And in some fights, you even gain immortality. I've lost track of the number of times I've solo healed or completely solo'd the last 20% of a bosses health with Clemency. You can solo heal dungeon bosses where the Healer dies in the first 30 seconds. Solo heal the last 15% of the Arachne Eve spider in Weeping City. Your Paladin with 20k hp and no healers suddenly becomes a Paladin with 50k+ Hp. So not only can Clemency save lives in clutch moments it also allows for an extremely powerful "Self Preservation Mode."



I'll pull, you /push.
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There is nothing that important for Tempered Will to block.

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Tempered Will. Every patch brings a brand new round of experimentation! "Which abilities will it work on.. which abilities SHOULD it work on!" Constantly we are let down by many a mobs ability to knock us around while this skill is active. Nevertheless, there have been some fantastic uses to prevent yourself from being one-shot due to a mistake. It's definitely had its time to shine in a few difficult raids. Though it hasn't seen too much action in 3.3. Here's some uses you may not have known of:


In General - Tempered Will removes Slow and Bind. Removes Heavy from Beastmen.
Dungeons - Nothing major. Mostly just for fun. (Toads, Neverreap final boss, etc.)
Shiva EX - Prevents Arrow and Sword arena knockouts
Titan EX - Prevents Landslide arena knockouts
Leviathan EX - Prevents Slam arena knockouts
T5 - Prevents Divebomb knock back
T9 - Prevents Divebomb knock back
T9 - Prevents Heavensfall knock back
T10 - Prevents Wild Charge knock back
T13 - Prevents Divebomb knock back
A3S - Prevents Wash Away knock back (one less headless chicken for Digititis)
A6S - Prevents Ballistic Missile pinball chain reactions (mostly pre-nerf)

Note: Hallowed Ground also prevents many of these knock backs / knockouts as well



The Mother of Tethers, The Maker of Chains
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Cover sucks. Period, don't even need talk about it.

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A wise man once said... "Cover is amazing." -Clive Hawkins

Since the dawn of time man dreamt of being able to make their healer immune to most damage, for 10 seconds, at a distance of 10 yalms. They were simple folk with an odd measurement system, but you have to admire their determination in making their dreams a reality. Enemies that ignored the enmity table had free reign to stabflop and bashclank whomever they wishdesired. And were oftentimes accompanied by an unbreakable tether or target marker over a poor healers head. However, times have changed. All of these attacks can now be completely mitigated by tossing Cover on our battered Medica Mage. Allowing us to completely skip mechanics and even save party members who fail to do a mechanic correctly. Let us explore it's various uses while giving silent thanks to these unsung heroes of old!


Snowcloak - Fenrir. Healer doesn't hide behind the glacier in time. Fenrir freezes them, bites them, and the glacier explodes and kills them. Cover prevents all of this.

Hullbreaker Hard - Mistbeard. Healer fails to esuna their slow, gets blown up by the following AoE. Cover prevents this.


It's also useful when you don't realize an inexperienced healer had tossed regen on you in the middle of a large pull and mobs are now bee-lining straight for them. Cover also works when combined with Tempered Will to save the lives of those whom are... not salvageable. Absorbing their arena knockout for them without them even realizing you saved their life. Also, in rare cases where a healer accidentally let's you die, or fails to heal you properly, you may find yourself being raised by swiftcast to rejoin the fight. However, because your enmity was reset upon death, all of these hungry critters are now omnomming your squishy frienemy without mercy! Allow me to introduce "Cover". As a Paladin you have all the tools you need to completely turn this situation around. A quick Cover gives you 10 seconds to Provoke, Flash, Stunlock, and Hallowed your way to a close victory! Of course these things are all situational so let us apply Cover to the more hardcore raiding environment:


T13 - Earthshakers. Allows you to Cover melee DPS to completely ignore the mechanic
T13 - Holmgang absorbs Ahk Mourn. Cover prevents the auto attacks from killing him
A2S - Wave 8. Prevents Snipers from pounding away on your White Mage.
A5S - Hummelfaust beelines to White Mage as soon as he spawns. Cover.
A8S - Perpetual Ray. Holmgang absorbs the magic. Cover absorbs the physicals after.


There are other progression based situations where you need to Tank swap but Provoke won't be ready for another 5-10 seconds; Cover can buy you the time you need. Or if your Offtank dies during an add phase you can quickly take over by Covering the Healer that's next on the hate list until you acquire hate yourself. Though in most situations, Cover is just plain ol' awesome at saving a tragic Healer that decided to Medica spam right before a spawning group of adds.



Conclusion Sauce
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You crawled through the depths of Paladin despair and emerged upon this thread. Doubt turned into hope as your mind filled with the new and wondrous possibilities presented before you. "There is a use for my Paladin spells after all" the words filled your heart like the whispers of an angelic orchestra. You hear a knock on your pixelated door. it's Clive Hawkins; A Fortress of Knowledge delivering an extra large package of awesome sauce.


Or so the legend goes...

I would like to ask additional questions, mostly from raid perspective:

-How do you best utilize RoH debuff?
-How do you stance dance on PLD? When is it worth it?
-How do you tank in DPS stance as PLD? (What kind of rotation do you have to use? What do you have the OT do? Opener?)
-How do you get around PLDs high TP costs related to their stuns and ranged attacks?

I'll answer according to my personal experiences. Different parties use different strategies. And all healer's prefer mechanics be dealt in different ways.


How do you best utilize RoH debuff?
During progression (ie. haven't cleared the fight yet) Halone should be applied to every boss that has physical attacks by using a Halone -> Goring Blade -> Royal Authority rotation. However, you should always prioritize maximizing Goring Blade up-time after invulnerability transitions. Once you begin to over-gear a fight you can open with a single Halone to grab hate and then ignore that combo completely. It really depends on the fight as bosses like A4S and some robots in A6S use only magical attacks. Then there's bosses like A7S where the Uplander Doom tank buster is extremely easy to plan for and you can simply apply Halone just before or even during the beginning of the mechanic. In short, it really depends how hard you are being hit and how good your healers are.


How do you stance dance on PLD? When is it worth it?
3.2 really changed the amount of time a Paladin stance dances. In 3.0 a Paladin tanked A3S in Sword Oath for 95% of the fight while wearing zero Vitality accessories. However, DPS checks are much easier to hit now while incoming damage to Tanks is much higher. Shield Oath has become much more desirable, especially with the damage increase it received.


Depending on your parties personal preference, Tank swaps in 3.2 can be incredibly short affairs. In A5S, A7S, and A8S (from what I've cleared thus far) a Paladin can hold onto these bosses for 95% of the fight where a Warrior simply Provokes for 5-10 seconds until your stacks wear off. It's not uncommon for a Paladin to be in full-time Shield Oath and the Warrior to be in full-time Deliverance (or vice-versa depending on taste.) In A6S you tend to spend an equal amount of time Tanking so Sword Oath finds a lot more use.


How do you tank in DPS stance as PLD? What kind of rotation do you have to use?
In 'current' dungeons, with an equal ilevel to that of a DPS, you can Tank just about any boss in Sword Oath from the start using your basic Halone (Fight or Flighted) -> Goring -> Royal combo. I say most bosses though as if you have to run around a lot you are going to quickly lose hate. In such fights it doesn't hurt to do your opening in Shield Oath and switch to Sword Oath when you are about to apply Goring Blade. There really is no set rotation, it's really about reacting to the enmity list to see if another Halone is needed to give you breathing room again. Or if you really need to get back into Shield Oath. Some DPS will greatly surprise you.


Raiding really depends on a few things. If you have a Ninja in your party you can get away with a lot more DPS rotations. Then it depends on how healing intensive the beginning of that fight is. A White Mage tossing Medica's can be a very fearsome adversary in Sword Oath. So it depends on your party composition and the amount of healing involved. Eventually you'll pound your face into the fight enough times to figure out the exact number of rotations you can pull off in each stance without losing hate.


What do you have the OT do? Opener?
You should never have any trouble keeping hate from the OT assuming you start the pull in Shield Oath (which you should; DPS burst damage is frightening.) Though make sure you get used to timing your tank swaps so that you always land a Savage Blade combo right after provoking to grab snap hate. (Never use Halone to grab snap hate; it takes too long.) From there you finish with a Halone to make sure he doesn't pull it back off of you. It also helps you (and your Bard) if a Warrior calls out when he's popping Berserk.



How do you get around PLDs high TP costs related to their stuns and ranged attacks?
3.2 raiding has been a pleasant surprise as there have been no fights where I have completely zero'd out on TP yet. There is a lot of running around in A5S, small breaks between bosses in A6S, and a bit of running around / invulnerability phases where you regain TP in A7S. However, this does directly scale with your skillspeed and with some gear set ups TP can become an issue in A7S; especially if the parties dps is too low to kill True Hearts with a single 6 second stun. If you get under 200 TP ask for Goad, Ballad, or Promotion. Chances are, if you have a Monk, he'll be begging for TP at roughly the same time as you.


If TP regeneration is not available I temporarily start working in a few Stoneskins or Clemencies at the end of a rotation while keeping Goring Blade up full time. If TP becomes a consistent problem you can usually convince a DPS to take over one of the less important stuns, such as A7S Kugerblitz's. A4S however is an absolute nightmare. Our TP only lasts for about 3 minutes with constant aggro and there is almost zero downtime in that fight.

Can't agree with you more on protect, stone skin and clemency. I actually use it quite frequently in my progression. Might I ask you any tips on generating burst amount of enmity? Because one thing that currently annoys me is that I find myself unable to compete for aggro on a newly spawned add against a i240 MCH (I am i230), even when I tried to do you snap hate method (use fast blade on boss before add spawn, then provoke + savage blade the add immediately, combo'd with RoH next). Is there other methods to generate a lot of enmity in a short burst other than this that I may not be aware of?

Liked your answers. So the life link protects my comrades from being pushed back? Glad to hear it.

When I take damage due to life link and have debuffs for increased damage, do I still take more damage or is it raw?

Can the freedom of movement be used against the sand trap of Mhach spider?

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Originally Posted by Cipher_Zaabiz

Can the freedom of movement be used against the sand trap of Mhach spider?

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As "Newbie" PLD i can answer this one as I've tried this.
Yes it can.

To make it even more fun; Popping cover + Tempered will and you can negate the pull effects for a second person as well as yourself.

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Originally Posted by Ampheni

Can't agree with you more on protect, stone skin and clemency. I actually use it quite frequently in my progression. Might I ask you any tips on generating burst amount of enmity? Because one thing that currently annoys me is that I find myself unable to compete for aggro on a newly spawned add against a i240 MCH (I am i230), even when I tried to do you snap hate method (use fast blade on boss before add spawn, then provoke + savage blade the add immediately, combo'd with RoH next). Is there other methods to generate a lot of enmity in a short burst other than this that I may not be aware of?

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The only other option that sometimes provides better results is Flash. Sometimes it can be faster to Flash a mob as soon as you see the name plate appear since you don't have to actually target the mob first. Keep it mind some mob spawns can be really odd. As even if you grab snap aggro sometimes they still like to run halfway across to room to hit the person who aggro'd them first. I think it has to do with the three second server tick this game runs on.


As far as burst aggro is concerned there's simply nothing better than opening with a prepared Savage blade combo. If the exact same part in the fight gives you difficulty you could try a Vitality potion for increased DPS or saving Fight or Flight for that moment. With ilevels being equal I've really never had a problem with Savage blade in Shield Oath. It sounds like it's just the 10 ilevel difference; an i240 weapon, and possibly better melds if he has access to a lot more Crit V's and Det V's.

I feel a mixture of mild disgust and genuine, deep sadness that this thread not only doesn't touch upon what fantastic OT's pld's can be, but very specifically caters to the "PLD=MT" mob mentality.


Cover works best when used as an OT mechanic to manipulate things that normally target the MT. The ways it allows your party to manipulate game mechanics is freaking incredible, on par or better than using perfect dodge/mitigation effects back in 2.x, which lead to their nerfing in 3.x, and puts to shame any bland situational "cover the healers or squishy dps if the healers are bad" situation.

Shield oath may be "more desirable" now than in 3.0, but that does not change that the dps margin between pld and the other tanks is at its lowest when in dps stance, and a pld OT with War or Drk MT is better raid dps tan a pld MT.

Also sad that ninja synergy isn't touched on at all. Then again, that would probably further underscore the benefits of a different MT or heavens forbid both tanks swap to maximize CD's rather than only swapping when forced to do so.

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Originally Posted by ArdorGrey

I feel a mixture of mild disgust and genuine, deep sadness that this thread not only doesn't touch upon what fantastic OT's pld's can be, but very specifically caters to the "PLD=MT" mob mentality.

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I don't think this thread caters specifically towards MTing, but I find OTing quite simple. It doesn't really require an in-depth discussion imho. Pop Sword Oath and and go town. Uses of Cover were mentioned.

I find the questions of tanking dynamics more interesting. Eg. If fight requires no tank stance, who tanks, using what kind of rotation, and what does the OT do? Take a PLD+WAR combi, which one should tank? If PLD tanks, should WAR OT use Butcher's forcing more hate combos from PLD, or just debuffs, losing potency but giving more DPS room for PLD? Or the other way around, if WAR tanks, should they rotate Path or Eye, what if there's a NIN in party? How and when does mitigation rotation (RoH, Path) increase healer DPS. What kind of mitigation combinations can you use in tank stance or out of it? What is the maximum amount of long term mitigation you can have? CDs that are best stacked? Maximizing mitigation and damage benefits through tank swaps? Is it worth it to use tank stance for tank swaps in favor of less hate combos afterwards?

What if the fight does require tank stance? How does all of the above change? I wish people talked more about these kind of things.

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Originally Posted by Galactimus

T13 - Holmgang absorbs Ahk Mourn. Cover prevents the auto attacks from killing him

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I didn't even think about this since I've always just thought about how HG can't stop magic. This is a fantastic idea ^^ Do you know if it will work for Final Steps Ahk Mourn as well? I assume yes, but confirmation is always nice :)

You can also save people from physical wipe mechanics using cover and HG. Be sure to use HG though... I made that mistake on Seph during the handswipe when my healer didn't make the wind circle... Was all proud of myself for saving him until I died in mid air and realized my HG never went off.

Good overall coverage on some of the more situational move sets that many people ignore for PLDs though =)

Ha! I know exactly who you're quoting with those criticisms! That probably means I spend too much time here...

Anyways, the only beef I really have with Paladins is that the more situational/reactive utilities(the spells mostly) spend a lot of time unused when your party has a given fight well in hand. In progression, Paladin can certainly be the best thing ever (TM) , but it's just so odd to end up pressing fewer buttons once that progression ends.

Either way, I'm firmly of the opinion that the more boring someone believes Paladin to be the less they've ever considered trying the utility. There was a Vault run I did just after getting Clemency where I saved the party at every boss fight in ways only a Paladin can. I told the FC that this must be what it feels like to... Palawin :P

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Originally Posted by Malicewolf

I didn't even think about this since I've always just thought about how HG can't stop magic...

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Hm? HG can totally stop magic! My group's Akh Morn strategy was light cooldowns for 1, heavy cooldowns for 2, Holmgang+Cover for 3, HG for 4, and every cooldown+praying for 5(but we didn't usually reach this one hence using HG on 4 instead of here).

There are just some specific mechanics that say FU to the "invincible buttons" but they eat through all of them. The Ramuh EX Tank Swap mechanic is a good example of this.

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Originally Posted by Donjo

Hm? HG can totally stop magic! My group's Akh Morn strategy was light cooldowns for 1, heavy cooldowns for 2, Holmgang+Cover for 3, HG for 4, and every cooldown+praying for 5(but we didn't usually reach this one hence using HG on 4 instead of here).

There are just some specific mechanics that say FU to the "invincible buttons" but they eat through all of them. The Ramuh EX Tank Swap mechanic is a good example of this.

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Sorry, maybe I should of reworded that, I just really meant that HG can't stop Nidhogg's Akh Morn. I tried to save a healer using cover HG and we both proceeded to take all dmg inflicted (and he died).

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Originally Posted by Malicewolf

Sorry, maybe I should of reworded that, I just really meant that HG can't stop Nidhogg's Akh Morn. I tried to save a healer using cover HG and we both proceeded to take all dmg inflicted (and he died).

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Oh, my. I never thought to try that. Guess that's one of them things that ignores the invincible buttons. Oh noes!

Edit: Half the fun of Paladin Utility is figuring out where it doesn't work! [also from the book of "lolStatistics"]

You can use Living Dead to survive damage from Akh Morn in Nidhogg Ex. The problem is that he will kill his target and then switch to another until he happens to target you, and you're generally one of the last ones to be targeted. I haven't tried doing this with Hallowed Ground, but I would be very surprised if Living Dead worked and Hallowed Ground did not.

My problem with cover is that it doesn't cover magic damage, only redirects physical to you. I find the emergency times i want to use it, it usually ends up the person i cover dies anyway. Also the time i thought YES I CAN USE COVER TO SAVE THIS is in antitower, when i was free'd late and the boss started casting knockout on the dps, i used cover, sat next to them for a second, and when the knockout hit the dps it still killed them. So for me cover, even when i try to use it, hasnt been too useful. Not that i raid with pld so i dont use it for stack soaks

I noticed you actually quoted my sayings. Take it with the salt of having good/great players playing with you, making those situational skills almost not used in the most optimal runs.

Let me explain my stance for these situational skills. You can take those out and barely will have any impact to PLD's gameplay.

I am a PLD main since 2.0 release. Cleared most of the raids mostly earlier by 1 month and more before things got phased out. Cleared A4S and farmed it for 8 weeks before going to 3.2 patch. Top 8 PLD in FFlogs for Gordias Savage for DPS. Currently at P4 of A8S for MT/OT role (can do all tank jobs at higher level of play).



1. Protect. ONLY useful if your healers are busy with healing/dead (why are they even dead again?). Usually end up in a really bad shape. MOSTLY is a wipe. It had a good run in A4S since you help healers to save mana. Now? It's like you are banking on a very small chance for it to save your run, which again isn't ideal, you are better off redoing the fight than to try to recover and master mechanics. It's a huge pain to recover especially in A7S and A8S.

2. Stoneskin/Clemency. Other than downtimes usage where you aren't doing much, emergency use at best, complement mostly bad/okay healers, or just trying to learn mechanics. There is no content any healer job can't do. Period. You are better off getting another healers if you have to keep using Stoneskin/Clemency to yourself or your party members, especially on clearing attempts/or weekly clears.

3. Cover. This skill is very hard to utilize. You are absorbing someone's damage taken for yourself. Worse case scenario, it speeds up your death because healers are focusing heals on your co-tank OR you are taking additional burden of having yourself getting hit (you get damage from low defense party member) by bosses and mobs to your healers or dps alike. Best case scenario, you can OT or you just want to cheese physical damage. Only useful and impactful implementation was T13's Earthshaker and Holmgang's protection, and even then still very niche at best, even without the skill, you can still clear. Back then you could cheese Cover + HG. That was good.

4. Tempered Will. I am not too fond when people use skills to not do certain mechanics just because they can, mistakes alike. If you are good, you don't have to rely on such a limited use of a skill. All those knockbacks you mention can be mitigated if you do the mechanics well enough.

Note: You absolutely wouldn't want to use Tempered Will for T10's Wild Charge. Why? Try it without echo and low level sync, you will die from the hiss.

5. Silence. Please stop saying why you should be using this to absolutely silence something. You are missing 300potency attack. Get a bard/mch/nin to silence for you, big deal.

6. Pacify. Mostly work on mobs only. Just use it for more DPS. Fluffy damage too tough to handle? What high-end bosses can you pacify again? Use it for DPS. Period.

7. Stun. Please stop chaining stunning mobs unless if you need to. You only need 1 stun each to kill mobs in A7S. You will left with very low TP in long fights like A7S. Chaining stun is 99% not effective. You can delay your stun to hearts in A7S because it starts gaining speed after 10s, unless if you know your group can kill it fast then go ahead.

Good in A6S too to stun Hardmind and Hardhelm if you aren't using caster LB, for more effective DPS. Good in A8S if you are OT in P2 to stun orb.

Situational is called as such because out of so many contents, it's only useful for a few of them. Useful as it is but quite pointless for the most part. You don't compare those skills to skills like Rampart because it's universally good.

My 2cents.

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Originally Posted by Sarcatica

My 2cents.

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There's no doubt these are situational movesets. I don't think the OP was ever trying to imply they are not. But they are undoubtly helpful in those situations (why he posted the instances each can be useful). The only thing I would really disagree with on the above is your tempered will point. You say you can mitigate if you do mechanics well enough... yes, in a sense true, but also lower's potential to DPS more when you could prevent the push back and get in an extra hit or two AND you can cover someone, which means the same for them. I always find it amusing when hardcore raiders say "don't bother with x because it hardly makes a difference" but then get their panties in a bunch if you mess up 1 move order and it'll drop your DPS from 711 to 706 (oh my). And just to clarify, not pointing this statement at you Sarcatica, it's a general thing I've noticed with hardcore raiders.

I am mostly referring to the mechanics you do in Midas since it's the most updated raid. In 5-8s, there isn't a case where not using Tempered Will and Cover will make people lose DPS, except for Brute Justice's knockback. You want to get knocked back in a6s for mines for more dps as of now.

Great little guide, enjoyed reading it and the comments. I find it funny how much utility PLD has always had, but it always gets the rep for being the worst of the tanking classes. Oh well. Maybe you should mention divine veil in here, too. I use it frequently while raiding.

It's not a reputation. It's a fact. PLD utility is just worse than DRK and WAR.

The game itself is based quite heavily on DPS checks, unlike a lot of other MMOs where tanks are just meatshields and they often don't deal enough damage to bring more than 1.

And even then if game is more focused on the roles strictly, PLD hailed as the best defensive tank is quite the joke. Every single tank take about the same damage and definitely needs heals. In this case, PLD is then highlighted as the tank that doesn't bring as much to the table, exception being RoH and Divine Veil and arguably HG (still about the same as DRK for the most part).

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Originally Posted by Brian_

It's not a reputation. It's a fact. PLD utility is just worse than DRK and WAR.

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DRK has utility? They have a lot of ways for dealing damage and do it well but you can't really argue they have better utility by any measure.

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Originally Posted by Brian_

It's not a reputation. It's a fact. PLD utility is just worse than DRK and WAR.

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Oh boy. Guess we need to take a deeper look. Utility!

Reducing Outgoing Damage
DRK: Delirium(-10% INT) and Reprisal(-10% ALL, no 100% uptime)
WAR: Storm's Path(-10% ALL, 100% uptime)
PLD: Halone(-10% STR) and Divine Veil(Absorb 10% of PLD's Max HP)

Winner: Unless -10% damage needs to be on the boss 100% of the time, DRK generally wins at reducing outgoing damage. Divine Veil might be the best skill among the Tanks for defending against an individual hit, but it can't be up often enough to beat Delirium since most hits that target the entire party are magical and less than 120 seconds apart. PLD's ability to reduce physical damage is better at protecting Tanks themselves, but damage directly to the Tank usually isn't the biggest concern for healers...

Bonus Dungeon Trash Round!
PLD: Flash(Blind)
DRK: DA+DD(Evade) and DA+DP(Blind)

Winner: DRK can become the god of dodging in trash packs. Whee!

Increasing Incoming Damage
WAR: Storm's Eye(-10% Slashing Resist)

Winner: Well, there's only one option here. I feel like maybe one of the others should get a Slashing Resist debuff too so that a PLD/DRK party isn't so much of a laughing stock, but that's neither here nor there.

Interrupts
DRK: Low Blow(Stun)
WAR: Brutal Swing(Stun)
PLD: Shield Bash(Stun), Shield Swipe(Pacify), Spirit's Within(Silence)

Winner: PLD is the only job in the game who possesses all three interrupts. Even though pacify isn't useful in raid content and PLDs are the last people you want on silence duty, they're still there and can save lives when they're necessary. Why can't DRK silence again?

At this point, we've exhausted WAR and DRK utility. Their few tools in comparison to PLD are undeniably powerful and desired, but PLD still does have the likes of Protect, Stoneskin, Clemency, Cover, and Tempered Will sitting around. I feel comfortable dropping Protect though because I'm in agreement with the notion that if things are far enough gone to require that the PLD cast Protect then the fight's probably a lost cause anyway.

Sometimes a kid wins the talent show not by having the singular best talent, but by having the most kind of cool talents :P

Any perceived overall ranking aside, Tank utility shines best when two Tanks combine and we're currently in a situation where any combo can combine well. Kudos to SE for making sure that none of the Tanks step on each other in this regard. Of course, the DPS meta forces WAR into most parties but sometimes PLD gets to play with DRK. Believing that any Tank is the one who "doesn't bring much to the table" is just an exercise in ignorance. They all bring enough to the table.

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Originally Posted by Donjo

...

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The statement wasn't who brings enough to the table. It was who brings more or less. So, congrats on the TLDR. It really didn't say anything anyone hasn't already said here numerous times and didn't really prove anything despite the "deeper" look.

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Originally Posted by Kitfox

DRK has utility? They have a lot of ways for dealing damage and do it well but you can't really argue they have better utility by any measure.

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Seriously? Delirium and Reprisal matter more than anything PLD has other than DV. At this point, I am still surprised that people do not understand the full scope of raid comps. Having your INT debuff covered by your DRK allows you to bring DRG/NIN if you don't need traited Mantra. As jobs, DRG/NIN have way more impactful utility than the alternative you would be forced to bring to cover the INT debuff, MNK.

As Sarcatica has already detailed, while the initial write up was nice, the reality is a bit different and almost all of the PLD utility is fluff in Midas Savage. In terms of meaningful and consistently impactful utility, WAR and DRK are generally better.

You people are ignoring the part of the post that talks about casual content, and forgetting that up-to-date raid scenarios are like 5% of the game. Paladin might have less DPS and raidwide mitigation utility, but for most of the content all the utility and cross class skills Paladin has are really, really good. You might argue that top end content is the only one that "matters," but in the end all of us have to do Weeping City weekly, have to do roulettes for tomes, etc. Some of us also like doing Mentor roulette, et. al, where you can't know the quality of your party and your healers. You might argue that these are niche or unimportant scenarios, but in the end they share similar amounts of time you spend in the game, so it's really no different than hardcore raid times in terms of gaming experience.

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Originally Posted by Fernosaur

You people are ignoring the part of the post that talks about casual content, and forgetting that up-to-date raid scenarios are like 5% of the game. Paladin might have less DPS and raidwide mitigation utility, but for most of the content all the utility and cross class skills Paladin has are really, really good. You might argue that top end content is the only one that "matters," but in the end all of us have to do Weeping City weekly, have to do roulettes for tomes, etc. Some of us also like doing Mentor roulette, et. al, where you can't know the quality of your party and your healers. You might argue that these are niche or unimportant scenarios, but in the end they share similar amounts of time you spend in the game, so it's really no different than hardcore raid times in terms of gaming experience.

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Originally Posted by Galactimus

including their uses in our various raiding environments.

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It's appropriate since the OP discussed about mostly raid contents as examples for the skills. PLD has always been said as the 'best' tank. Admittedly PLD is the feel-good tank due to how simple it is to play since forever. BUT that still doesn't discount how badly people (usually casuals and baddies) use PLD (even with the simplest aggro/DPS kit) to do anything. I joined a practice party for A6S before and this PLD was doing 400dps going into the 2nd boss (Brawler). Now, let's reflect how bad that dps is, even if you are the 'traditional' tank. Some people claim they are raiders but have no idea how to push DPS as damage dealers, also the same thing.

People stay casual for their reasons, be it they don't like going into challenges or the whole attitude of having to keep improving or idk. One thing that is 100% clear is this: The game will never see contents improvement time to time is mostly because of the casuals. Is Sohr Khai really that tough? Weeping City too tough? Guides are all over the place, even mouth to mouth is good enough to warn people and yet they still wipe a whole lot. How hard can the developer push the normal contents harder? How unique are the mechanics? How engaging are the mechanics? So far, it's on the borderline bad. Every single patch introduces different content with the same level of skills. This is where the skill gap is from. Relatively new players 100% will not have a chance to get better since they are not challenged enough. People get so easily offended. Once in SephEx farm party, DPS were so slow I saw so many more mechanics. I just mentioned DPS was low and I got kicked because they deemed it was toxic (???) for me to bring the DPS topic up. Like what? So you are farming yet seemingly won't be able to clear with those low DPS? Logic?

If you see how many contents have been nerfed to oblivion (not entirely but comparison remains), it speaks volume to how much SE has been catering to the casuals just because it's harder than they thought and actively sought for nerfs and of course SE will have to since the casuals make up for the huge majority of the subs. Then comes this: How do the players improve then? Chocobo PUGs speaks otherwise.

The game is already boring as it is for most veteran players. What we do daily? Raid log, try to top DPS, craft the same thing over and over, AFK in game, chatting, not running contents because mostly they are boring, trying to help people clear normally ends up pretty badly since they wipe you and can't take criticism.

If you are just posting for the sake of telling us "we are bad and that's okay", we have seen and heard them millions of times. Don't need to repeat it again.

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Originally Posted by Brian_

Seriously? Delirium and Reprisal matter more than anything PLD has other than DV. At this point, I am still surprised that people do not understand the full scope of raid comps. Having your INT debuff covered by your DRK allows you to bring DRG/NIN if you don't need traited Mantra. As jobs, DRG/NIN have way more impactful utility than the alternative you would be forced to bring to cover the INT debuff, MNK.

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Well, if you want to compare compositions, DRK/NIN/DRG against PLD/MNK/DRG, you're basically trading Reprisal/Trick Attack for RoH/Mantra. The PLD setup is also more friendly to AST instead of a WHM so there's the cards too. At that point, in my humble opinion, the differences are more of wash than "way more impactful."

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Originally Posted by Sarcatica

Blah blah

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You are confusing my post and putting words in my mouth. I didn't say PLD is best played by "casuals." I said that Paladin's toolkit helps a lot in casual content like the daily dungeons and etc, and then said that implying PLD is useless because the toolkit the job has isn't ideal for endgame raiding is basically ignoring the other 90% of the content of the game. The GAME. Not the players. You know, the game that you pay monthly to not play, apparently, because the stick goes up too deep for you to even consider helping other people get clears for content.

Never did I mention quality of players at any point, and the fact that you apparently assumed I'm "bad" or casual just because I talked about the casual content everyone has to do at some point is just plain silly. What I'm telling you is that you're judging the class only from one perspective, and basically reducing it to it's viability in top end raiding exclusively, a perspective that also pretty much assumes people in progression are never gonna fuck up, which is just silly and unrealistic.

The amount of tunnel vision in your posts is astounding, but I guess it's another example of the awful parts of the game's community. Don't even bother answering (though I know you will), cause I won't bother reading. All your previous posts are more than enough to know it's pointless to debate anything with you.

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Originally Posted by Fernosaur

Paladin's toolkit helps a lot in casual content like the daily dungeons and etc

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Which part of the 90% of the game are you saying that PLD toolkit helps a lot? Healers too bad to press a few buttons to cure hence you have to help them clear? Healers spamming aoe heals till you have to Cover them? DPS too hard they tunnel vision till you need to shield them? There is no basis to what you are saying. The basic knowledge of the game is rather simple, no reason to cater to bad players because they don't want to improve. In the first place you as a tank aren' t supposed to take off burdens that are so rudimentary.

I still occasionally help people practice and clear. It's just getting to me that the general concensus is that people either aren't competent enough to pull their own weight, don't want to improve and worse, don't want to admit they are bad and then say you are toxic. To get good is to admit you are bad first before you improve.

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Originally Posted by Fernosaur

You are confusing my post and putting words in my mouth. I didn't say PLD is best played by "casuals." I said that Paladin's toolkit helps a lot in casual content like the daily dungeons and etc, and then said that implying PLD is useless because the toolkit the job has isn't ideal for endgame raiding is basically ignoring the other 90% of the content of the game.

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Raiders don't ignore 90% of the other content in the game. We just understand that raid balance filters down into lesser content. It's not like Reprisal, Delirium, Eye, Path, better sustained healing, higher single-target DPS, and significantly higher AoE DPS suddenly matters less when you queue for a 24-man or dungeon run. I did thousands of dungeon runs on PLD, did all but Savage SCoB of 2.X on PLD, and still play PLD a considerable amount to this day. It's laughable how much better WAR is in content in general.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kitfox

Well, if you want to compare compositions, DRK/NIN/DRG against PLD/MNK/DRG, you're basically trading Reprisal/Trick Attack for RoH/Mantra. The PLD setup is also more friendly to AST instead of a WHM so there's the cards too. At that point, in my humble opinion, the differences are more of wash than "way more impactful."

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If you think Reprisal / Trick Attack / Shade Walker / Smoke Screen is an even trade against RoH / traited Mantra in a general sense, I really don't know what to say. If someone wants to dig their head that deep into the sand, I guess there isn't much you can say.

It's basically your opinion vs. the established opinion of the entire end-game raiding community.

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Originally Posted by Brian_

If you think Reprisal / Trick Attack / Shade Walker / Smoke Screen is an even trade against RoH / traited Mantra in a general sense, I really don't know what to say. If someone wants to dig their head that deep into the sand, I guess there isn't much you can say.

It's basically your opinion vs. the established opinion of the entire end-game raiding community.

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I agree that Reprisal / Trick Attack are a little better in general, but how much better are they really? In what kind of borderline case would that difference actually come to play? My guess is it's only the 2-3%(?) dps increase from Trick Attack that might actually make or break an enrage timer. As far as mitigating tank busters goes, RoH works on the same stuff as Reprisal does (A5S-A7S, not sure about A8S), and for heavy raidwide damage you have a combination of Divine Veil and traited Mantra instead of Reprisal. Not to mention Reprisal doesn't work against bosses/phases that have no physical attacks, PLD and MNK retain their utility. Yes, Reprisal is available more often but not in all the same situations.

That's why I think it's more of a wash, but then again I don't clear raids on the first week below minimum ilvl. I don't like the idea of taking the established opinion as granted but I wouldn't call it burying my head in sand. I'd rather you explain it more in-depth why the opinion is what it is. If it's just because of a slight dps increase, yeah I get it. But if you're saying DRK/NIN utility is always better than PLD/MNK in every situation, then that's not really accurate, is it?

So let me get this straight, you want me to argue the merit of DRK utility? Strange because...

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Originally Posted by Kitfox

DRK has utility? They have a lot of ways for dealing damage and do it well but you can't really argue they have better utility by any measure.

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...I thought you said there is no argument by any measure.

Now, I'm more than willing to have this discussion but don't wonder why I said you had your head buried in the sand when you start the conversation by saying that there is no argument. And, if you're looking to learn, maybe a question is a better starting point if you want an actual explanation rather than some self-sure statement.

Trick attack is 10s per 60s. That's a ~17% uptime for a 10% party-wide damage buff. Generally, because of buff syncing and DoT snap shotting, that's roughly a ~2-3% increase in raid DPS. But, more importantly, it is controlled burst. Many damage-centric mechanics in this game are focused on controlled burst. For a detailed example, in A8S's p2, you have ~40s to kill Blaster before Vortexer drops. 10s of 10% more damage in a 40s DPS window that aligns with everyone's full opener is way more impactful than just an on-paper ~2-3% raid DPS increase. There are multiple examples of short burst DPS windows -- A1S Faust, A3S equal concentration, gaols, A4S legs, Sephirot EX wind-add, A5S hummel faust, A5S first prey skip + boost skip, A6S second charge-mirage skip, third chakram skip, double bio-arithmeticks skip, A7S hearts, etc.

And, NIN's other utility like Shade Walker and Smoke Screen are also incredibly useful. Outside of the obvious benefit on the initial pull, Shade Walker is also great for smoothing out pick-ups like Hummel Faust, A5S adds, A6S bosses in general, A7S dolls (especially useful to guarantee your DPS will be safe when transitioning to the padlock), A8S p2 pick-ups, etc. Smoke Screen is great in similar way -- smoke-screening on add-spawns or during huge AoE healing phases to cover your healers.

The big difference with DV vs. Reprisal is DV is a one and done on a 120s CD. Reprisal actually has multiple hit coverage with at most 60% up-time. So, in a fight like A7S or A8S where you get sequenced and multiple hard hitting raid-wide damage mechanics, it is much better than DV.

On the flip-side, RoH is really not that needed because none of the physical tank busters hit hard enough to really threaten a tank even in week 1 gear and it does nothing for raid-wide damage mitigation. And, traited Mantra is really only exceptionally useful for 1 activation in 1 fight (A8S). One pairing of utility is clearly much more situational than the other.

It's really funny to see people so enslaved by the meta that they're writing walls of text to try and discredit something as being useless when it's really only slightly worse than the alternative. The period of this tier where utility choice beyond "don't duplicate jobs!" actually matters is long gone. Best to just let it go.

A5s is the best example, paladins skill to get crit immunity helps a lot at the end of the fight to clear the mob there.

The skills might be situational but there is no class besides the paladin who has a skill for every situation there.

That makes him unique compared to other tank jobs, even when his dps is lower than the other ones.

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Originally Posted by Donjo

It's really funny to see people so enslaved by the meta that they're writing walls of text to try and discredit something as being useless when it's really only slightly worse than the alternative. The period of this tier where utility choice beyond "don't duplicate jobs!" actually matters is long gone. Best to just let it go.

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It's not "slightly worse". There's a big difference because any survivability more than what's needed is wasted, and there are plenty of other ways to survive mechanics that don't involve long cd skills like DV or Mantra, or the dps loss from losing NIN/DRK.

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Originally Posted by Cipher_Zaabiz

A5s is the best example, paladins skill to get crit immunity helps a lot at the end of the fight to clear the mob there.

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WAR and DRK can (and should) crossclass Awareness. You should also never see that add with any decent dps.

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Originally Posted by Brian_

So let me get this straight, you want me to argue the merit of DRK utility? Strange because...

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It was a snarky provocative remark, but what did you expect if you just say something is fact and offer no arguments for it? Especially when the bulk of the explanation is about NIN utility, not DRK/PLD. Snarky comments get similar responses, no matter of the factual value. Should've just posted your explanation back then.

Now, Trick Attack I understand, it's great for burst and DPS, but then again, if that's really the issue with any particular fight, you can have a NIN and PLD in the same party. Shadewalker and Smokescreen, while certainly helpful, don't really offer anything very substantial apart from saving a hate combo here and there. Maybe you don't agree with me, but I've never felt like having either of those has changed what I do as a tank, and if we're going to go ahead and say all PLD utility spells, RoH and cover are useless, I'd count Shadewalker and Smokescreen in the same category.

What comes to Reprisal vs DV, obviously Reprisal gets more uptime and can be planned for multiple AoEs like the Merry-Go-Round in A7S, but how often do you really rely on the more uptime aspect? You can't rely on parry for constant upkeep, and while it's great if you get a proc every now and then for more mitigation, isn't it in the same "not needed category" as parry/block are, in the sense that it doesn't really change how the healers spend their GCDs? If Reprisal isn't needed to survive any specific AoE moment, and overhealing from the AoE heals after said raid damage is over 10%, isn't Reprisal then essentially wasted? It does however come with the condition that you have to be able to parry, so it's not as often available with prevalent tank swaps or enemies with purely magical attacks. Also, I personally feel like the mitigation factor when not stacked with other mitigation for specific moments is not something that would change how healers would act. DV on the other hand has a long cooldown, but can be used whenever in all situations (unless everyone's silenced I guess).

For current Midas Savage, Reprisal is better due to the nature of multihit mechanics, for aoes and tank busters both. But that's a question of encounter design. Outside of the specific type of multihit raid damage situations, reprisal is still better on paper and mitigates more damage on the long run, but I'm skeptical how much of a difference it has on real situations and healer GCD usage. I don't play healers so I don't know, that's why I'm interested.

Midas introduces good shares of magical and physical damages, if you know you have the DPS to clear, i'd say you should opt for PLD/MNK combo since you gain access to RoH/DK stacking for A8S specifically which by any rights should be up 100% whenever you can hit the boss.

But other than that, for 100% DPS potential is indeed DRK/NIN/DRG only IF you would like to assume that your NIN/DRG can do their respective DPS numbers about equivalent to what you see in FFLogs (ofc no additional/deliberate padding because that's not the point). And most people don't have DRG/NIN able to do huge DPS like those in FFLogs. NIN in particular feels quite like the BRD is to MCH, I rarely see NIN able to do that much DPS.

Note: See under the category of Speed runs in FFLogs and DRK/NIN/DRG comp is almost by default included. http://www.fflogs.com/rankings/10#metric=speed