Paladin misunderstanding.

Hello there,

This is my first Forum post since starting the game a few months ago. I currently have all tanks at 70+, with GNB at 80. I was copletely baffled with paladin as it only has ONE defensive ability, if you discount the 30% variant all other tanks have and role actions.
And with that ONE defensive ability, it isn't even on demand... You have to wait for multiple auto attacks to even use it.
I'm not a fan of clicking on party frames or using F1,2,3,4 etc.. to target party members, in order to use utility on them. Macros in the game are EXTREMELY unresponsive, and keybinds are a premium in this game. So using party defensives feels exhausting tbh.

I genuinely struggle to understand how this tank is considered the best of all of them, as I personally find it borderline useless. A tank with 2 baseline defensives... And all the others literally either don't work on you or preven you from moving or hitting abilities. I mean like holy crud...

I was soo looking forward to sword and broad, it turned out to be sword and bored /w a helpless undertone. It could be I don't understand it's strengths fully, but as a former WoW player, I never had to deal with a tank that literally had nothing to offer for itself. Clemency maybe extremely good, but it has a cast time and mana cost, and unfortunately tank damage is such a major thing in this game, that you almost feel disgusting for using it. However it can save fights in dungeons.

In shortm I am really disappointed with PLD defensive toolkit, with it being the tank posterboy and all. Also if PLD is meant to be OT, why would everyone keep saying that all are able to MT, it can't just be OT then, so where is the MT tools. Hollowed ground is great and all, but what about those other exponential minutes in between.

Vexxed.

They have Hallowed Ground which is the top tier of defensive cooldowns.
Don't keep it for an "oh no bad things are happening" moment, use it as part of your planned cooldown rotations, especially in endgame fights.

So they have 6 total defensive abilities when you count everything including role skills.
Uh, 7 maybe if you count Divine Veil and 8 if you count Passage of Arms, though you cannot move during it.
Not to mention the chance of blocking on everything on top of parry chance like other tanks have.

They are very much otherwise the support tank, with skills the help bolster defense of other tanks. For years it's been regarded as the de facto off tank for the purpose, though fight mechanics these days have tanks swapping so much there really isn't a main or off.

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Originally Posted by Navnav

Hello there,

This is my first Forum post since starting the game a few months ago. I currently have all tanks at 70+, with GNB at 80. I was copletely baffled with paladin as it only has ONE defensive ability, if you discount the 30% variant all other tanks have and role actions.
And with that ONE defensive ability, it isn't even on demand... You have to wait for multiple auto attacks to even use it.
I'm not a fan of clicking on party frames or using F1,2,3,4 etc.. to target party members, in order to use utility on them. Macros in the game are EXTREMELY unresponsive, and keybinds are a premium in this game. So using party defensives feels exhausting tbh.

I genuinely struggle to understand how this tank is considered the best of all of them, as I personally find it borderline useless. A tank with 2 baseline defensives... And all the others literally either don't work on you or preven you from moving or hitting abilities. I mean like holy crud...

I was soo looking forward to sword and broad, it turned out to be sword and bored /w a helpless undertone. It could be I don't understand it's strengths fully, but as a former WoW player, I never had to deal with a tank that literally had nothing to offer for itself. Clemency maybe extremely good, but it has a cast time and mana cost, and unfortunately tank damage is such a major thing in this game, that you almost feel disgusting for using it. However it can save fights in dungeons.

In shortm I am really disappointed with PLD defensive toolkit, with it being the tank posterboy and all. Also if PLD is meant to be OT, why would everyone keep saying that all are able to MT, it can't just be OT then, so where is the MT tools. Hollowed ground is great and all, but what about those other exponential minutes in between.

Vexxed.

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First off it's very clear you are green with your rant. Secondly it does take time to get used to using your defensive cooldowns correctly. Further, discounting what is shared between tanks is a stupid way to say a tank hasn't got defensive when it in fact, does.

Dungeons mean nothing, in terms of mitigation rotate your cooldowns from strongest to weakest, while mixing in on demands as they come off cooldown (get gauge) and role actions like reprisal and arm's length. In 8 man content, you have two tanks so you have twice as many cooldowns between tanks that if played right can significantly reduce incoming damage, that can't be seen in solo or light party set up. Tankbusters in casual 8 man content is usually spaced out enough you'll always have a cooldown plus on demand up just about every time you need it. Also the GCD window is big enough to use support skill/ targeting macros smoothly, 90% of the time without issue, just don't use other oGCDs before it.

And it is worth taking on what Canadane has also said, paladin has passive blocking while yes rng, still happens pretty frequently. Worth noting following Canadane's point, there is no MT/ OT designation in ffxiv, all tanks are capable of pulling and holding aggro, and mitigating damage, though there is varying degrees of efficiency between the tanks, it's negligible at best.

Sentinel - 30% mitigation
Rampart - 20% mitigation
Sheltron - 20% block guaranteed
Reprisal - 10% AoE damage debuff to enemies
Arm's Length - 20% slow to non-bosses in most content

Between these PLD has more than enough beefiness, especially when you factor in its passive block chance.

while pld has the worst personal mitigation/sustain for boss autoattacks, it has the best party mitigation. wings and divine veil are huge. pld gets to mitigate aoe AND shield the party, while other tanks only get one or the other.

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Originally Posted by Navnav

Hello there,
And with that ONE defensive ability, it isn't even on demand... You have to wait for multiple auto attacks to even use it.

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Originally Posted by Lucy_Pyre

Sentinel - 30% mitigation
Rampart - 20% mitigation
Sheltron - 20% block guaranteed
Reprisal - 10% AoE damage debuff to enemies
Arm's Length - 20% slow to non-bosses in most content

Between these PLD has more than enough beefiness, especially when you factor in its passive block chance.

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There's also Divine Veil that places a barrier on the party for 10% of the tank's HP. At level 80, tanks have over 100k HP. That's a pretty decent shield granted it's timed right with a heal.

Intervention - 10% Damage reduction for another party member.

Passage of Arms - Guaranteed 100% block rate for PLD. 15% damage reduction for party.

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Originally Posted by Navnav

Hello there,
Clemency maybe extremely good, but it has a cast time and mana cost, and unfortunately tank damage is such a major thing in this game, that you almost feel disgusting for using it. However it can save fights in dungeons.

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Honestly, you shouldn't be using Clemency THAT much. It's nice for when the healer is down and you and a DPS are burning down an enemy with 10% health and you become the designated healer/DPS for a clutch finish. It's also good for solo play but other than that, you shouldn't be healing at all during dungeons. I've seen some healers get offended by PLDs using Clemency. Let them do their jobs.

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Originally Posted by Renato

There's also Divine Veil that places a barrier on the party for 10% of the tank's HP. At level 80, tanks have over 100k HP. That's a pretty decent shield granted it's timed right with a heal.

Intervention - 10% Damage reduction for another party member.

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I was listing their personal mitigation toolkit, and neither Intervention nor Divine Veil benefit the PLD, so I didn't include those.

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Originally Posted by aodhan_ofinnegain

First off it's very clear you are green with your rant.

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I think his argument has some validity. It isn't fair to dismiss it because of a rant. In a sense, he's right. PLD has a very small pool of pragmatic mitigation.

The other tanks get at least one other CD, ToB and Equilibrium for WAR, camo and aurora for GNB, DM and AD for DRK (although weak, TBN more than makes up for it). PLD doesn't have that option, unless you're desperate enough to stop all outgoing damage and resort to PoA. Instead, once either rampart or sentinel's been used, you don't have much else except to what's available to the other tanks, and that's not saying much.

Of course, Hallowed Ground is that special exception. However, since he is green, it can be easily forgiven that he hasn't thought to use it as a regular CD. Still, you can only realistically use it about twice a dungeon for pulls, after which you go back to relying on primarily sentinel and rampart, but those have to be spread out thinly for other pulls. Sheltron kinda sucks until higher levels, and even then, doesn't block nowhere near enough to consider a suitable replacement for a CD.

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Originally Posted by Hierro

I think his argument has some validity. It isn't fair to dismiss it because of a rant. In a sense, he's right. PLD has a very small pool of pragmatic mitigation.

The other tanks get at least one other CD, ToB and Equilibrium for WAR, camo and aurora for GNB, DM and AD for DRK (although weak, TBN more than makes up for it). PLD doesn't have that option, unless you're desperate enough to stop all outgoing damage and resort to PoA. Instead, once either rampart or sentinel's been used, you don't have much else except to what's available to the other tanks, and that's not saying much.

Of course, Hallowed Ground is that special exception. However, since he is green, it can be easily forgiven that he hasn't thought to use it as a regular CD. Still, you can only realistically use it about twice a dungeon for pulls, after which you go back to relying on primarily sentinel and rampart, but those have to be spread out thinly for other pulls. Sheltron kinda sucks until higher levels, and even then, doesn't block nowhere near enough to consider a suitable replacement for a CD.

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Dark Mind doesn't really apply here, since most of the time trash mobs are primarily auto attack based and that's physical damage. Aside from that, don't forget that Sheltron can be used back-to-back if you have a full gauge. That's a not-insignificant factor in PLD's cooldown suite, especially if you're pulling a huge group and start the pull with Hallowed Ground as this gives you an extra buffer window of auto attacks to build up said gauge.

Clemency doesn't have a cast time under Requiescat, and also heals 50% more of its huge potency heal. Also, despite its cast time without Req, PLD has a trait that makes casts uninterruptable, meaning you only lose out on block and parry chance if you choose/have to hard cast. As long as you don't miss out on Confiteor, and are only using Clemency when you're sure that the healer can't keep you up(see: Rare/easy to misjudge), then it's fine to use.


Passive shield blocks on PLD are almost like full time Camoflauge from GNB. Aurora ticking for its full duration only heals roughly 27k HP on average, depending on your gear. PLD is much more survivable, you just need to spend more time with it.

I agree that pld is lacking on self mitigation and should probably get one more cooldown added, though agree shouldnt be the word since its more of a fact. If anything pld should be the tank with the best self mitigation, since he is supposed to be the beginners tank. I will also say after the shb job design calamity, pld is the second best imo , gnb is a complete job cause it was designed with current expansion in mind , but pld was the least screwed over compared to poor drk and war. I miss stormblood.......

Thanks for the replies everyone. I'm still not convinced this is the best tank, in the sense of being a tank, rather than being a support class. I also think it is the most advanced job to use well. Since a lot of it's mitigation requires a lot of thought and knowledge of fights and reacting fast to whoever is going to take damage. It's decisions to heal too. Ultimately not the tanking class for me. I prefer self mitigation above all else. I love the GNB even if a bit squishy, but it has good self mitigation cds and streamlined group support that is easy to use, so you can just focus on tanking.

All the same, thank you for everyones feedback. It's a nice community here.

Maybe it's just because I started GLA/PLD, but I still think PLD is the best "tank" between it and GNB/DRK. Those two feel like they're trying to be DPS classes with all of their oGCDs, as well as losing the shield's HUGE extra defense. PLD just feels like an solid rock, because it doesn't need gimmicky abilities to shore up parry/block or mitigate Mag/Phys dmg.
DRK and GNB are really squishy, especially if their healer isnt on point. With PLD, Reprisal and Sheltron are on such low CDs that even with slow healers you'll never have to worry about pulling big or being too slow out of an AOE.

This is strictly my noob opinion, but I also feel like the upgraded Halone's Wrath and the oGCD aoe move giving you two DOTs lets you focus a little more on timing your Sheltron or the party shield move (Which I still haven't used seriously outside of Alexander, smh) rather than making sure your rotation is on point.

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Originally Posted by Navnav

Thanks for the replies everyone. I'm still not convinced this is the best tank, in the sense of being a tank, rather than being a support class. I also think it is the most advanced job to use well. Since a lot of it's mitigation requires a lot of thought and knowledge of fights and reacting fast to whoever is going to take damage. It's decisions to heal too. Ultimately not the tanking class for me. I prefer self mitigation above all else. I love the GNB even if a bit squishy, but it has good self mitigation cds and streamlined group support that is easy to use, so you can just focus on tanking.

All the same, thank you for everyones feedback. It's a nice community here.

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You understand that PLD and GNB have nearly identical cooldowns, yes? The only significant difference is that GNB has Camouflage while PLD has no similar CD. Other than that, however, the rest of their personal mitigation kit is practically identical.

Nebula = Sentinel
Rampart = Rampart
Heart of Stone = Sheltron (just weaker than Sheltron)
Reprisal = Reprisal
Arm's Length = Arm's Length

The only functional major difference here is that GNB has Aurora, while PLD has instead passive block chance.

On another note, every tank requires fight knowledge to make proper use of their cooldowns. You can't use a cooldown properly if you don't know what any of the boss's abilities do; regardless of which tank you're on.

The problem here is Passage of Arms. People are going to argue that it's not a real cooldown because it's a dps loss when active, but it's also a potential 18 second personal Rampart coupled with an extra raid-wide mitigation skill over all other tanks. This is vaguely reminiscent of the "Inner Beast makes WAR the most defensively robust tank in prog", coupled with "Inner Beast doesn't exist in farm/speedruns, so WAR is at a defensive disadvantage" argument from previous expansions. If you want to address the issue, you have to change how PoA works.

To be fair, GNB has it worse. Camo doesn't come close in value to PoA.

I think if PLD had an ability that gave you 75 oath gauge on a 60 second recast, it would be a lot better. So you are able to jump into a fight with your primary defensive ready, like everyone else.

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Originally Posted by Navnav

I think if PLD had an ability that gave you 75 oath gauge on a 60 second recast, it would be a lot better. So you are able to jump into a fight with your primary defensive ready, like everyone else.

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PLD honestly doesn't need this for most encounters, there is a few fights that are notable where there is a long drawn out downtime, where DRK passively regens mana, and both GNB and WAR have standard timers for their on demand cooldowns, but it's super niche. If there is a super early tankbuster and you're pulling, get NF/TBN/ HoS from your co tank and pop appropriate cooldowns, or use your invuln to get the timer rolling on it.

Also worth noting half the time most people do be sitting on full gauge, not everyone actually uses intervention when OT. So I genuinely can't see how it would really be an effective means to shore up defenses on PLD. Like when I planned out my cooldowns on pld for fights, if there was downtime coming up and needed Sheltron/ Intervention, I would plan ahead to have enough gauge for it, it's part of playing tank in this game, use your head and plan out your cooldowns.

side note: "So you are able to jump into a fight with your primary defensive ready" Sheltron isn't really your primary defensive, that would be Rampart/ Sentinel/ Hallowed and it's up to you to decide which is the most effective one at that time depending on the amount of damage from the tankbuster or what type of tankbuster it is, Sheltron is more of a filler cooldown to add extra mitigation where needed.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

To be fair, GNB has it worse. Camo doesn't come close in value to PoA.

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I would argue this point. Camouflage is, in fact, an extremely potent CD when used properly; which is against auto attacks. The 10% mitigation is nice but nothing to scoff at. However, the real important part is the 50% increase to parry chance. Against packs of trash mobs which, as we all know, are almost universally auto attack focused, Camouflage is more potent than Rampart (but slightly less than Nebula) unless you get completely shafted by RNG and get little to no parries.

It's nice, but the parries average out to 10% physical mitigation, and you get the most consistent results the more hits you take during the window (i.e. dungeon trash which is just as easily mitigated by other means or a multi-hit physical tankbuster).

They all have their situational strengths, but in terms of raid value, I'd rate Camo the lowest.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

you have to change how PoA works..

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Do we still like intervention?

Cuz I'm thinking something that sorta steps on intervention's toes mechanically.

1. Creates Zone on ground
2. Paladin standing in zone gains increased Block Strength
3. Allies standing in zone gain the Paladin's Block chance and half the strength

I tried with PLD, but I really find it to be by far the worst tank of the lot, from a tanking stand point, because GNB may be squishy, but at least it doesn't give you utility you aren't supposed to use, it has a plethora of CDs (though weak) and good damage.

When Shadowbringers came out I was really surprised Clemency didn't go to the chopping block or get changed into an oGCD with 90 sec cooldown or something. Would've solved this problem right quick. Same deal with Cure 1 and it still not getting a trait just upgrading it into Cure 2 and getting it off of peoples hotbars baiting them into thinking they're supposed to use that. Some of the most problematic skills we have; as you may probably guess you're not the first or the last person who thinks they're supposed to be using Clemency or thinking that using it over Holy Spirits and moonlighting as a healer is a playstyle choise. It really isn't. It's just really poor efficiency.

The thing is, even (good) healers don't want to use GCD heals unless they have to. None of the other tanks have a GCD heal and they all have similar mitigations and do just fine so it's just weird that PLD even has that, especially since a lot of people start tanking on PLD and obviously fall into that trap.

It has its uses. It can prevent a death with good reactions if someone is low before a raidwide and you're not sure if the healer can get them. It can prevent a wipe and keep a run going if the healer kicks the bucket. You can throw it on yourself every now and then if you really don't trust your healer for some reason but you should still aim to get your requiescat buff and do those DPS spells; mobs dying faster is mitigation in and of itself. It's just that you should never use it if things are going even halfway decently as doing so is just a pointless DPS loss when healers have OGCD heals.

If you enjoy GNB then that's good but if you liked PLD aside from having to be told that spamming heals is bad tanking then I find it weird that you're so hung up on that issue. You take Clemency out of the picture and both of them are essentially doing the same thing: cycling their mitigations and maximizing DPS.

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Originally Posted by Lammas

It has its uses.

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In E5S I was so sick of the DPS botching Chain Lightning in PUGs I swapped to Pally and helped heal through that. If I hadn't I'm convinced I never would have cleared that fight.

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Originally Posted by Navnav

I tried with PLD, but I really find it to be by far the worst tank of the lot, from a tanking stand point, because GNB may be squishy, but at least it doesn't give you utility you aren't supposed to use, it has a plethora of CDs (though weak) and good damage.

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I've mained Paladin since the start of the game, and play Gunbreaker as my secondary tank job for variety. I think there must be something going wrong here with the way you've setup your skills or use them because I really feel the only lacking thing from a Paladin's toolkit compared to GNB is Camouflage, and that's matched by your passive block abilities.

Paladin to me is miles ahead of Gunbreaker in general survivability when needed, both of itself and its party. Gunbreaker's advantage is primarily in damage.

Both classes have Rampart (20% damage reduction for 20 seconds).
Both classes have Sentinel (30% damage reduction for 20 seconds).
Both classes have Arms Length (20% attack speed reduction for anything hitting you for about 20 seconds).
Both classes have Reprisal (-10% damage done aoe debuff, for 10 seconds).
Both classes have Low Blow and Interject to stun/interrupt mob abilities.
Paladins have Hallowed Ground, Gunbreakers have the objectively worse Superbolide.
Paladins have a constant passive chance to block any attack. Gunbreakers have Camouflage on a cooldown.

Those are the obvious match-ups in mitigation. Now for the major differences.

Gunbreakers have Heart of Stone (15% damage reduction for 7 seconds once every 25 seconds). Paladins have Sheltron (15% damage reduction via blocks for 6 seconds every 50 Oath gauge). The oath gauge takes about 20 seconds to get to 50, but has the advantage of being able to stack to 100, so you can use two Sheltrons back-to-back if you get consecutive big hits. It's much more versatile once a fight starts, but just prevents very early use. Advantage Paladin due to versatility of this move.

I wont mention Cover or Intervene, because these cost 50 oath gauges and are the equivalent of "casting a Sheltron on a friend", and the Gunbreaker can just cast Heart of Stone on friendly targets, so these kind of balance out, though a Paladin can outright save someone with Cover + Hallowed Ground whereas a Gunbreaker just has the damage reduction option.

Gunbreakers get Aurora which is a free small heal over time every 60 seconds. It's good, as its free and you can keep it up constantly, but its only a fairly small amount of health every 60 seconds. Couple this with the small heal from Brutal Shell and when doing their basic single target rotations, Gunbreakers self heal a reasonable amount of light incoming damage without their dps rotation suffering. Paladins get Clemency, a skill they never use when things are going well. But when things go to hell-in-a-handbasket, Paladins can throw out Clemencies enough to get them up to full health many times over. Countless times in dungeons I've had healers die to mechanics and as a Paladin it's been cake to switch into Healer Mode and keep myself AND the other dps up. Gunbreaker just has to hope that its Shell+Aurora is strong enough to outheal things.

Gunbreaker has Heart of Light, which is a 10% magic reduction buff to the whole party. This is good. However, its use is to reduce AOE damage on big telegraphed attacks, and generally on these attacks its always the DPS or healers that are at risk of exploding. It's rarely the tank that dies to big AOEs in bosses because the AOEs are tuned to be survivable by a squishy DPS. The Paladin equivalent, DIvine Veil, gives 10% of the Paladins Health as a shield to everyone else in the party. Sure it doesnt help the Paladin but it's arguably slightly better at doing what this kind of move should do - keep the squishies alive.

That's everything both classes have access to defensively in a 1:1 comparison.... and the Paladin ALSO has Passage of Arms (15% damage reduction to themselves and everyone behind them) AND Shield Bash which allows them to tab->stun->tab->Stun huge packs of normal mobs for 6 second stuns each, which is a fantastic emergency method of mitigating damage if something bad happens.

When I compare the above, I just cannot see how someone can view the Gunbreaker as the toughest of the two tanks. They're incredibly similar, and whilst one may favor the "passive" healing from Brutal Shell and Aurora of the Gunbreaker, nothing comes close to the Paladin's ability to keep themselves and multiple dps up in an emergency via swapping to Clemency spam (though of course you hope never to need this as in the toughest of tough Ultimate/savage fights, if you have to do this then it means you wont meet the dps checks).

So the main variety is in their "healing options", and as almost every veteran will tell you, Healing is not something tanks should be doing if all is going to plan. Healing isnt mitigation. I only include Clemency and its awesomeness at survivability from the perspective of things like "healer disconnected on a dungeon boss" or "both healers died and you needed to self heal a tank buster whilst the RDM raised one". Those situations are basically guaranteed wipe on the hardest encounters anyway, but at the lesser end of things the Paladin comes across as borderline overpowered in survivability. And that does count for something as not every encounter is the top Savage bosses... but even discounting Clemency, hopefully the 1:1 comparisons above show that the Paladin has just as much self mitigation and significantly higher group utility, just at the cost of doing a bit less max dps than the Gunbreaker.

I enjoy playing my Paladin and what it offers. It has many party utilities and I love the lore that follows the Paladins. Obviously you enjoy the other tanks more and good for you. That does not mean that the rest of us are not enjoying this particular job.

this is so well written, kudos !

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Originally Posted by Sapphidia

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Aurora is more comparible to the passive blocking in terms of how much damage its soaking a lot of the time as it heals about 35k damage every min meaning with camoflage gnb has more at its disposal in terms of mitigating while being uniterrupted dps wise

One thing of note in the shelltron vs heart of stone debate is that by popping shelltron a paladin is unable to parry ontop of the mitigation that the cooldown has provided and their benefit of passive blocking is essentially negated for its duration, this also means heart of stone and camo can pair nicely together or just luck.

Divine Veils requirement of a gcd heal to proc can make it problematic when comparing it to the ease of use of heart of light due to how much healing is done via ogcds

Hallowed Ground doesn't block the damage from cover

I would question how on earth you would get into a situation where you would need to shield bash multiple enemies anyway and don't think ive seen anything like that in years, and in terms of being overpowered in terms of survivability that would probably go to WAR in "lesser content" provided they have at least one party member with them due to how much self healing they can put out with nascent flash, whilst still operating at peak performance

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Originally Posted by ReiMakoto

One thing of note in the shelltron vs heart of stone debate is that by popping shelltron a paladin is unable to parry ontop of the mitigation that the cooldown has provided and their benefit of passive blocking is essentially negated for its duration, this also means heart of stone and camo can pair nicely together or just luck.

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Another thing to add is that in dungeons and generally all content with big groups of trashmobs block and parry lose a lot of value since critical hits ignore both and we do not have awareness anymore to negate this. So on big pulls a pld can take a lot more damage than the other tanks if your rng is bad.
You could end up with your Shelltron mitigating less damage than HoS and even Camouflage has atleast a 10% damage reduction on top of it's 50% parry.