Paladin -- You're doing it wrong

I've noticed in these boards that many of you are having trouble holding aggro whilst maximizing your damage contribution to the party. So I've been crunching a few numbers on how best to optimize PLD's damage output with the toolkit we're given. The rotation is no longer oversimplified like it has been for the past few years so it's time to relearn the class from scratch. I'm going to start by saying that PLD is primarily a defense-oriented class, and as such, damage mitigation should be your number one priority, and damage output your second. Let's get started.

First, the attacks we're going to be working with:

GCDs:
Fast Blade - 160 Potency
Savage Blade - 210 Potency + enmity
Rage of Halone - 270 Potency + even more enmity
Riot Blade - 240 Potency + MP gain
Goring Blade - 250 Potency + 60 potency DoT for 21 seconds (670 potency altogether)
Royal Authority - 360 Potency
Total Eclipse - 110 Potency AoE around user
Holy Spirit - 430 Potency spell, adds 20 oath gauge points if you're in shield oath

oGCDs:
Spirits Within - 300 Potency (damage scales with remaining HP)
Circle of Scorn - 100 Potency AoE around user + 30 Potency DoT on each target for 15 seconds (250 Potency total per target hit)
Shield Swipe - 150 Potency + Pacify
Requiescat - 350 Potency (damage scales with remaining MP) + increases healing and damage magic potency by 20%, but only if MP is at 80% or higher
Sheltron - Blocks next attack and recovers MP. Costs 50 Oath gauge points.

Buffs:
Fight or Flight - 25% damage increase for 25 seconds
Requiescat buff - increases healing and damage magic potency by 20%, but only if MP is at 80% or higher

All other abilities are irrelevant to this thread and as such are not listed here for that reason. The new PLD rotation heavily revolves around shifting in and out of your burst phase. Your burst phase essentially consists of spamming Holy Spirit as many times as you can while Requiescat and Fight or Flight are up.

General Rules

The rules while using any of these openers and rotations are the same except for the offtank ones. They are as follows:
-Use Sheltron only once during your burst phase and as many times as possible during your recovery phase
-Use Holy Spirit up to 7 times during your burst phase and only once during your recovery phase.
-Use Shield Swipe every time it's available
-You have time to use oGCDs between Holy Spirits, use them, but prioritize your 1 Sheltron use during the burst phase before unloading the others
-Use Sheltron(or Intervention if needed) if your next Holy Spirit is going to make your oath gauge reach 100 or over
-If you must swap to Sword Oath while main tanking, try to do so with your oath gauge as close to 0 as possible, and do it only if you're confident you won't lose aggro.

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Originally Posted by negiman4

Buffs:
Fight or Flight - 25% damage increase for 25 seconds
Requiescat buff - increases healing and damage magic potency by 20%, but only if MP is at 80% or higher

All other abilities are irrelevant to this thread and as such are not listed here for that reason. The new PLD rotation heavily revolves around shifting in and out of your burst phase. Your burst phase essentially consists of spamming Holy Spirit as many times as you can while Requiescat and Fight or Flight are up.

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I thought Flight or Flight is only physical and wont buff Holy Spirit?

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Originally Posted by MomoOG

I thought Flight or Flight is only physical and wont buff Holy Spirit?

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Yes, FoF is physical only.

I haven't had issues, but then again, I stay in Shield Oath, only going Sword while solo or during dungeon bosses.

That said, with Shield Oath, I unintentionally work to keep hate, sometimes mindlessly forgetting to use Halone lol...

Tried so hard with 4 posts instead of just editing, yet immediately mistakes using FoF for spell damage burn phase. Paladin, you are doing it wrong.

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Originally Posted by Edewen

Tried so hard with 4 posts instead of just editing, yet immediately mistakes using FoF for spell damage burn phase. Paladin, you are doing it wrong.

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To be fair, most of the people just can't read tooltip properly. And most people who post in forums and reddit alike just aren't good enough to do high end progressions that you can't take their opinions seriously. Credibility is very much questionable at best. The same shit happens to people doomsaying DRK and WAR, aside from DPS comparison which will be up very soon because ACT is back.

I don't see how anyone now can be struggling unless the DPS is clearly burning themselves out on the 1st initial attack in which case let them tank! Tanks need to do an opening rotation just as much as a DPS class does, if they can't wait for that then fine they can tank the floor instead!

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Originally Posted by GDFletcher

I don't see how anyone now can be struggling unless the DPS is clearly burning themselves out on the 1st initial attack in which case let them tank! Tanks need to do an opening rotation just as much as a DPS class does, if they can't wait for that then fine they can tank the floor instead!

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Because allot of tanks forget to rotate there enmity combo on the mobs and also apply there dots or buffs/debufs on them

So you do the enmity combo first, then dots, then spam holy spirit as long as you have MP and that buff up?

Generally I do goring blade, (popping FoF right before), rage of halone combo, drop shield oath, do RA, reapply goring blade, req right before FoF ends, and spam holy spirit until oom. (then reapply goring blade/etc) Rage of halone's enmity generation in shield oath is not to be underestimated.

I will not claim my rotation is optimal or anything but it nets me a huge enmity boost at the beginning and generally unless I have big **** dps who don't use enmity reducers, I will not have to go back into shield at all.

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Originally Posted by Steelbreeze

Generally I do goring blade, (popping FoF right before), rage of halone combo, drop shield oath, do RA, reapply goring blade, req right before FoF ends, and spam holy spirit until oom. (then reapply goring blade/etc) Rage of halone's enmity generation in shield oath is not to be underestimated..

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I THINK that doing a halone combo into unbuffed goring into your magic rotation is better, just because if you use FoF in your opener you're going to miss out on I think 2 RA combos? And then your FoF cooldown will not be up quite after your magic rotation. If you start your rotation without FoF you can line up your cooldowns in a way that syncs really well with both phases of your dps rotation. Parses will tell, but that's what I'm thinking currently.

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Originally Posted by Kyt

I THINK that doing a halone combo into unbuffed goring into your magic rotation is better, just because if you use FoF in your opener you're going to miss out on I think 2 RA combos? And then your FoF cooldown will not be up quite after your magic rotation. If you start your rotation without FoF you can line up your cooldowns in a way that syncs really well with both phases of your dps rotation. Parses will tell, but that's what I'm thinking currently.

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This is correct, if you start with FoF opener youre just sitting on full mana, holy spirit spam is our highest dps so its a waste to not use it asap

Tanking boss is np for pld thats easy enought or you do it very wrong!
But when it come multi monsters Aoe capacity is terrible.


Flash: Ok but won't keep hate forever when dps burn there burst alot.
Aoe tuant like Ultimatum is for meh... but ok it works sometimes! But still the fact that not solve the problem of hate generate beacuse the that dps do alot of dmg and drain hate of tank fast.
Circle of scorn: yes its good but long cooldown.
Total Eclipse is awsome but no hate! I mean could be shield oath generate enemity and sword oath just normal potency dmg.
Then tanking gauge wtf for what only intervention works good but thats it should give us big aoe hit for hate.

So much i like paladin and Tanking in general is so sad and terrible.

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Originally Posted by GDFletcher

I don't see how anyone now can be struggling unless the DPS is clearly burning themselves out on the 1st initial attack in which case let them tank! Tanks need to do an opening rotation just as much as a DPS class does, if they can't wait for that then fine they can tank the floor instead!

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I am not a PLD yet, however I am getting to it. I have to say I was in a pty with a monk last night and their opening move on the Ifrit fight took all the hate I could build. even with provoke and everything I had, I couldn't turn him due to the monk just laying into him. Let us tanks build hate first before you go in and go nuts on the boss. The fastest fights I have had is the Pty allowing me to build the hate first and then they unleash on them. That is what I have noticed from FFXIV. I am a vet of ffxi and we don't have the sneak attack like we did in FFXI on FFXIV to build hate.

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Originally Posted by negiman4

damage mitigation should be your number one priority, and damage output your second. Let's get started.

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i find your logic to be flawed. damage IS mitigation. first of all your gauge in sword oath builds much faster that shield oath, 2 defensives are tied to having that gauge. also nothing has changed more damage skips mechanics and shortens the fight which results in less chance of a wipe and less healing needed. if you have a ninja in your group all you need is one roh combo then you should be in sword oath for the remainder if the fight. shrk has gaurenteed you will never need another roh. also pld is doing amazing in the dps department almost putting uo 3000 dps, if you sit in shield and play defensivly at the cost of that kind of dps you are hindering your raid. so no guys, super defensive is not the key to playing pld.

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Originally Posted by Dizzy_Derp

i find your logic to be flawed. damage IS mitigation. first of all your gauge in sword oath builds much faster that shield oath, 2 defensives are tied to having that gauge. also nothing has changed more damage skips mechanics and shortens the fight which results in less chance of a wipe and less healing needed. if you have a ninja in your group all you need is one roh combo then you should be in sword oath for the remainder if the fight. shrk has gaurenteed you will never need another roh. also pld is doing amazing in the dps department almost putting uo 3000 dps, if you sit in shield and play defensivly at the cost of that kind of dps you are hindering your raid. so no guys, super defensive is not the key to playing pld.

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I can somewhat get this in an 8 man, shirk can feed you threat all day. Are paladins really doing 4 man dungeons in sword oath? I have no freaking clue how you can hold threat from a top tier dps efficiently as a paladin sitting in sword oath in a 4man, let alone the gains of your dps being offset by the healing increase from the healer...

Maybe its something that starts working at 70 when you start getting geared up? In leveling dungeons, every experience I have with switching to sword oath basically means me using (many) more rage of halone, getting a moderate dps increase, and the healer having to actually heal..

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Originally Posted by Furious

I can somewhat get this in an 8 man, shirk can feed you threat all day. Are paladins really doing 4 man dungeons in sword oath? I have no freaking clue how you can hold threat from a top tier dps efficiently as a paladin sitting in sword oath in a 4man, let alone the gains of your dps being offset by the healing increase from the healer...

Maybe its something that starts working at 70 when you start getting geared up? In leveling dungeons, every experience I have with switching to sword oath basically means me using (many) more rage of halone, getting a moderate dps increase, and the healer having to actually heal..

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no 4 man content is a whole other thing, i was talking about 8 man content only. if your running around in a dungeon in sword oath the whole time then there is a 99.9% chance that you aren't tanking shit, mobs are probably running everywhere and people are probably dying :/

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Originally Posted by Tankstuff

This is correct, if you start with FoF opener youre just sitting on full mana, holy spirit spam is our highest dps so its a waste to not use it asap

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I do that simply in order to gain a bonus in initial enmity. Holy spirit spam (in SwO with Requiescat) is our highest dps but it's pointless if the boss starts running after the dps.

I had issues with aggro for like the first day. But that was going from a year of being fully geared and melded which a lot of people in the duty finder don't do I notice. Suddenly everyone is the same ilevel and Samurais hit like freight trains. After a bit of tightening up, its fine now.

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Originally Posted by Steelbreeze

I do that simply in order to gain a bonus in initial enmity. Holy spirit spam (in SwO with Requiescat) is our highest dps but it's pointless if the boss starts running after the dps.

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I haven't had any issues with this opener in ex primals and the dps are usually going off pretty hard right away