Healing a Paladin Tank, in my experience

UPDATE: After being away from the game for a few days and finally being able to play today, I was eager to see some kind of action so I jumped into an Ifrit pug. At first I didn't notice the tank because it was a cute little Lala named Lilly Grace. Barely taller than Ifrit's knuckle. I had to squint my eyes to get a closer look at this tiny tank from my safe spot. They were wearing a shield and it appeared to be a paladin! Further inspection confirmed it was a paladin!

I nearly fainted. I could buff, throw out cures, and regens to some of the DD while also healing this tank. Running from cracks the tank stayed up like a boss! Things got a little hairy at some points when it looked like the server was lagging a bit but we recovered nicely.

So paladin isn't as broken as I thought? This paladin was only wearing 1 piece of AF if I recall correctly. A couple pieces of sentinel gear and some HP materia but nothing too crazy. Their HP was around 4k and they definitely weren't squishy.

Maybe it really is just play style and dropping most of the AF for something better? Other classes seem to have decent AF for the most part. I know White Mage af is really decent. Paladin AF must be pretty bad?

Thanks for the wins tonight! Best pug Ifrit evah! I even picked up an Ifrit's Cane ^_^ Very good mojo. Lilly Grace, Talen Oberin, and co. Great DPS too. You run a good show. Lilly if you need a healer for AV, CC, Iffy, or Mog send me a /t. Healing you and Talen's crew was a lot of fun.


~Original post below~
I don't have a paladin leveled so I don't know what things are like from a PLD perspective. I do know that for me healing paladin tanks is headache inducing most of the time. I usually feel like I am healing a black mage who took all the aggro.

Yesterday, on Ifrit, I was healing a paladin who was keeping hate fantastically but when taking hits half his hp would disappear quickly. I noticed I was taking more risks myself and not getting out of cracks fast enough, being afraid to stop heals, because when I let up healing the tank would plummet to red health too fast.

On one attempt, I ran back to stoneskin the ranged DD and pop bene after hellfire and the tank died while I was away because the other white mage couldn't keep them up. Another attempt the tank also died while I was running from cracks. Protect and Regen was up and I know it's not the greatest but I am at around 550 healing potency (could be better I know but I have healed Ifrit before with no problems with less healing potency) and the other white mage was still healing and I feel like that should have been enough heals for me to run away from cracks safely.

Maybe I am spoiled from healing wars, idk. They just don't seem to plummet to red as fast and I can run from cracks safely and throw more cures out to DD with a war tank.

After the group I was with wiped, the other healer and I were pretty depressed because we were getting criticized pretty harshly. "WTF No heals?!" "You healers should be able to keep the tank up at least!" "WOW, heals. really?"

In talking in /t with the other healer we both agreed it felt like we were healing a black mage tanking.

I don't want to be a jerk and refuse to heal paladin tanks. I hear paladin tanks have to work really hard to keep hate with managing cool-downs and things. I have a lot of respect for players up to that kind of challenge.

I am not a number crunching elitist pro decked out in darklight armor but I do AV and CC runs pretty okay most of the time and feel I have a decent amount of Mog and Ifrit wins as a healer with war tanks. Healing paladin tanks is always a challenge I seem to fail frequently though. Like I said before, maybe I'm spoiled from healing wars but many other healers are having the same type of problem I am having.

I hope things get better for paladins very soon. For your sake and mine lol. I hate being yelled at when the paladin tank dies.

For the few paladins still tanking out there I have respect for ya and I don't think the paladin hp issue is the fault of the player but please respect the heals trying their best to keep you up (^_^)b

I know captain obvious is obvious and I am sure I need to L2P but I am throwing this out there in hope that maybe some of the people making adjustments to pld might take note of what it feels like healing paladin tanks.

I apologize for my grammar and spelling. It is 7 am and I haven't slept yet. FFXIV won't let me log in and this was one of the things on my mind so I thought I would attempt to throw this out there from my insomnia ridden mind. First world problems right? x]

:okay I need to go to sleep now. ~.~

Oh wow that's like the Great Wall of the wall of texts. x.X sorry lol

Yeah but it was a good story so I read it. :)

You're right, healing PLD is harder because 1) they don't have enough DEF skills 2) they don't have enough self heals 3) They don't have enough HP.

So to make up for it, what I usually do as WHM for any tank is take turns casting Stoneskin and Regen.

Also after HF, As well as most of the rest of the fight, DD should be able to take care of themselves. WHM should be only curing tank.

TLDL; I think you just got a bum party. :(

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Originally Posted by HiirNoivl

You're right, healing PLD is harder because 1) they don't have enough DEF skills 2) they don't have enough self heals 3) They don't have enough HP.

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Thanks for replying Hiir Noivl.

I think you are right. ^_^ I will remember to try and trade Stoneskins with the other healer and see if this helps. I don't know why I haven't thought of it before with a paladin tanking. I throw up SS when I can but trading ss casts is more efficient I am sure.

It is a fine point you make, and throughout the "fix pld" and "war > pld as tank" threads the same is being said. Plds got somehow gimped to the point of being nearly useless by not having any real dmg reduction traits. Your one of many healers out there that has felt the pain of that, and you got a party that got pissy and wanted someone to blame. Sadly in most cases it's the healers that take the hit when things go south since what people see is

From a DD's perspective:
I'm not getting healed, damn I'm @10% why have I not got a heal yet. I'm dead wtf. Now I'll watch other HP bars since I'm not super focused on my DPS. By now it's pretty much over anyway.

From a tank's:
Wow I'm soaking all the heals right now and the DDs are suffering as are the healers. I need to find some way to slow down the dmg I'm taking so the healers can share the love. Oh yeah I've got nothing. Shit people are dying.

And then of course the healer's:
Like you said, or at least my interpretation of it, I'm so focused on the tank that the DDs are not getting heals. If I slow down on the tank to toss a cure or 3 to the DDs chances are the tanks going down, but the tanks gotta live or we all die. I'm sorry mr. drg I couldn't keep heals on the tank and you.

After the fact it does appear that your not healing some people, cause well your not, it's not your fault though, your doing your job, sadly because of the fail design on pld it simply can't sustain the onslaught that plds the world over are built to take. It sucks that them being broken makes you appear to be doing a bad job.

When I say you, I mean all healers that try to keep a pld upright and are forced to watch DDs get their dicks knocked in the dirt.

End of the day, I hope there's enough of these posts to get the Devs attention and they get on top of making pld a job worth having, mostly cause I like tanking and I don't want to have to do it solely on War to keep my healers from having nervous breakdowns.

@Enfarious What you posted. Exactly.

While I'm sure some of what you experienced is valid as you explained it, it also sounds like you had a bad PLD who didn't bother trying to keep himself alive.

I admit we take more damage than we should, but if he isn't spacing out his abilities or even curing himself, then you'll run into problems.

Other than Hellfire, the biggest damage your tank will probably take is when he does a physical auto-attack followed by a magical attack. This is the point where the healers are needed most. For other things like his Flame breath, it does some moderate magic damage, but a PLD should be able to cure himself through this. With Crimson Cyclone, you have multiple chances to use Cover on somebody so you can restore a fair bit of your MP, considering it's a percentage based restore and Ifrit deals some heavy damage.

I admit it can be a pain in the ass, but I wouldn't go so far as to say PLD is taking damage like a BLM.

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Originally Posted by HiirNoivl

Yeah but it was a good story so I read it. :)

You're right, healing PLD is harder because 1) they don't have enough DEF skills 2) they don't have enough self heals 3) They don't have enough HP.

So to make up for it, what I usually do as WHM for any tank is take turns casting Stoneskin and Regen.

Also after HF, As well as most of the rest of the fight, DD should be able to take care of themselves. WHM should be only curing tank.

TLDL; I think you just got a bum party. :(

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Aye, I admit WHM is probably my weakest job skill wise, but I caught on quick to abuse the hell out of Regen and Stoneskin every opportunity I got.

Problem defense wise is the D-level factoring floors how much defense actually helps against his attacks and swipes (I can knock his attacks down to about 500 damage fully buffed w/o sentinel with around 1k defense), and his more devastating moves are magical which there isn't much in terms of magical defense almost guaranteeing full damage on PLD or WAR, meaning WAR's higher HP comes out on top in this aspect.

PLD has a hard time healing himself half the time too, due to interruption rates while taking damage (Alot of people are for making Holy Succor Instant Cast because of this even if they up the mp cost.) WAR can just keep on doing what he keeps on doing to heal himself popping second wind and blood bath every opportunity they get, and occasionally getting healed from Rampage's effect when they crit. Let's face it the game mechanics work against PLD in the healing department.

Thanks for the input guys.

I have healed a couple Paladins where it wasn't as rough and it felt challenging but doable. Maybe a wipe here or there but things could be adjusted to get the job done. This is rarely the case for me though. Very rare. Next time I encounter one of these I will ask them what exactly they are doing differently. Maybe they are managing cooldowns better or their point allocation and/or gear could be much different than the pld af. Or just getting lucky and not having their self heal interrupted? I will have to look into it.

I will probably get a reply like "IDK this is just how I play" though >.< It's like the special sauce recipe secret or something.

Yeah, it probably isn't quite as bad as healing a black mage tanking but after healing most wars then jumping to most plds the difference is pretty dramatic. I pug a lot so I heal all kinds. Maybe there is a pld secret recipe out there involving some quadruple melded gear stacking or some other insanity.

I rarely get to heal PLDs but in my experience the survivability difference hasn't been as significant as you make it out to be. WAR usually has significantly more HP unless the PLD has strong non-AF gear, which helps a lot, but the PLD should be able to help with healing to even it out, especially when there are gaps in healing.

I wish I had PLD leveled so I could actually try it out myself to see how it differs from WAR tanking.

There are a few good PLD's out there, but many many more bad 1's, and to varying degrees. It sounds like you got 1 of a lower skill. PLD does have a bit more mitigation and survival compared to a WAR, but it doesn't make a superior tank as ppl had hoped for. I have both WAR and PLD leveled and from my experience WAR has its "squishy" moments. When I'm out of cd's on WAR, well i'm out, PLD always seems to have a trick up it's sleeve. The key does seem to be like you said, management of cd's and mp, as well as getting out of AF gear into double/triple melded cobalt asap. AF gear, sadly imo, is complete trash. The way it should work is PLD has mitigation and should either A) stack more mitigation to reach a "cap" or B) stack hp to bridge the gap between them and WAR's. Where as WAR can either stack more hp, or more dmg output as this is directly tied to their survival. just my 2 cents

Don't use the af gear, it sucks. Use something with more VIT. PLD is still very much usable, people just prefer WAR 'cause of the dps. PLD should still take less dmg if geared correctly.

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Originally Posted by Molly_Millions

Don't use the af gear, it sucks. Use something with more VIT. PLD is still very much usable, people just prefer WAR 'cause of the dps. PLD should still take less dmg if geared correctly.

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This times a million =.=

Now Niko, I know that wasn't with our usual group lol. If it was, that's not cool and we have to talk with some people.

The biggest problem with Paladins and healing them is the 1k HP difference between it and Warrior. That 1k is quite a difference, especially since defense doesn't mean a whole lot against Primals. Paladin really just needs anotehr 500-700 HP if they're not going to change how the damage calculations work. That or Noctis's suggestion of a 15-20% damage taken reduction for Paladin. Shields should still mean something though, currently aside from a few skills they're fairly useless.

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Originally Posted by Molly_Millions

Don't use the af gear, it sucks. Use something with more VIT. PLD is still very much usable, people just prefer WAR 'cause of the dps. PLD should still take less dmg if geared correctly.

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However then we lose out on our enhanced skills. On something like Cover with the Surcoat, we're losing out on a good bit of MP regen because of it. Also I mean sure PLD can do it with specialized gear however any Warrior in full AF can do it just as well. I mean I've been using WAR to tank a lot lately and even with just full AF I have absolutely no issues staying alive, getting hate, holding hate or doing damage all at the same time. That's a problem.

Paladin can do it, you just have to work a lot harder.

I have WHM and Paladin, but mostly play WHM. Ifrit isn't a reall good gauge of how good a tank is. Ifrit is his own special kind of fight. Lots of Ifrit's damage is magical and you blocks/armor do nothing for. Few tanks, if any, stack fire resist to make the fight easier either.

The paladin's strength requires him to have melee around him. Divine Veil and Cover are a million times more useful if you have other melee around the paladin. Most fights, plays avoid using melee like it is the plague. Divine Veil makes keeping the melee of the party up so much easier and cover has tons of applications... when you have someone to use it on.

The reason, I feel, that the warrior is more popular is the warrior is easier to tank with. To tank with a warrior, you really just play like you are DPSing while throwing a few tank abilities into your rotation. The extra Hp makes a large buffer for error on both the whms and warriors parts. Paladins on the other hand, take more effort and planning, and understanding of your abilities. When with well played paladin, I generally do not have to heal; regen and stoneskin keeps them up. Warirors, on the other hand, I normally need to send more cures.

On Ifrit, I like a paladin can free up my time as a WHM. During jumps, the paladin can heal the party, heal himself, and raise someone. These little things free me up for more mana regen, raising party members, and rebuffing. Very handy.

Just hint about stoneskin, it makes Aegis Boon heals for zero. Lots of paladins and whms don't realize this, so good comms with your paladin is a good thing.

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Originally Posted by Klive

The reason, I feel, that the warrior is more popular is the warrior is easier to tank with. To tank with a warrior, you really just play like you are DPSing while throwing a few tank abilities into your rotation. The extra Hp makes a large buffer for error on both the whms and warriors parts. Paladins on the other hand, take more effort and planning, and understanding of your abilities.

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Therein lies one of the other problems. Warriors can tank without hardly trying to actually tank. Paladins have to actually try to do the same. Even a bad Warrior could likely tank sufficiently. A bad Paladin though is just going to end up dead quickly. Paladins must be good to even stand a chance, Warriors can be mediocre and still excel.

I don't get it, Gladiator's can't dd..right, we all agree? But Marauders can, but when jobs came out, PLD isn't as good of a tank as WAR? when WAR can dd and PLD can't? Seems like devs purposely trying to make pld useless, god damnit how stupid are they, it has a shield and a sword? sword and board=tank, not axe. I want a dedicated tanking class, not a WAR that does dmg to get hate. That's bunk, it would be like creating a class right now that cured using tp (like dnc) and was better than whm or something, whm's would be pissed.

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Originally Posted by zaviermhigo

I don't get it, Gladiator's can't dd..right, we all agree? But Marauders can, but when jobs came out, PLD isn't as good of a tank as WAR? when WAR can dd and PLD can't? Seems like devs purposely trying to make pld useless, god damnit how stupid are they, it has a shield and a sword? sword and board=tank, not axe. I want a dedicated tanking class, not a WAR that does dmg to get hate. That's bunk, it would be like creating a class right now that cured using tp (like dnc) and was better than whm or something, whm's would be pissed.

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While I understand your frustrations, please try to keep it civil. The devs are people to and as such are perfectly capable of making mistakes. They've made adjustments to PLD already but they were not sufficient to dethrone Warrior as THE tank. I'm sure we'll see even more with 1.22.

@Arcell LOL no it wasn't with anyone in our linkshell or my other linkshell for that matter. You guys are great. I haven't been able to log in for awhile so have been away from the pc. You know I pug a lot because of the strange hours I keep. The original post is the overall vibe I get healing paladins in general and a particular Ifrit run was on my mind that night. I am not naming names because like I said in the original post that paladin looked like they were working very hard and keeping hate nicely, like most of the paladins I heal. I don't think they are slacking at all and I don't want to trash talk anyone.

Yeah, I don't think the game developers are stupid or anything like that either. I think they will continue to make adjustments so that it will get balanced. I have a lot of respect for them. Which is probably one of the reasons I felt comfortable sharing. I was just throwing out my experience because us white mages talk about our challenges when healing paladins to eachother a lot but I didn't notice any healing pov on paladins in the forum so I tossed my experience out there.

I am glad I posted because I am getting a clearer picture from all sides because of the feedback. I don't DD much and I have never tanked so this is extremely helpful to me. I might also tweek how I heal them too. (If I can ever get my game running again) I might make some gear swap macros to make my protect/regen/stoneskin as effective as possible and I will definitely remember to trade ss w/ the other healer instead of just tossing mine out whenever. I'll try to time it more precisely more often.

I won't be on the forums for awhile. Thanks again to everyone for the positive feedback.

Peace.

Paladins get a bad wrap, especially on ifrit. Warrior as more HP, more dps, more overall survivability, and can break horns with their combo WS. We the paladin are at a disadvantage.
That said, there is no reason a paladin can't tank the fight no problems, the win may not be as certain a lock, but it shouldn't be a death march for the group.
My paladin has exactly 3,999 hp (with food), not far off from a warrior, I have zero issues with hate, I have zero issues with MP (you can cast cover on the jumps with good timing).
But yes, all can agree this fight, like most fights/instances, are slanted to the warriors favor.

Your PLD must have sucked, honestly. Because you used Ifrit as an example so will I. We run PLD WHM 6xDPS and never have a problem. PLD takes less damage from magic than WAR and can heal themselves very easily, meaning the WHM doesn't have to do much more than keep regen up and drop a cure occasionally. People have it in their minds that PLD still sucks because of how hey were released. They are not. They are very strong additions to the team and honestly tank Ifrit/Moogle better than WAR. Hell, PLD still makes better hate than WAR in a long fight but people don't know how to wait 10 seconds for them to get the first block.

Tonight I actually healed a paladin in a random pug who made all Ifrit wins almost as smooth as silk for the most part. Tanked as good as any war. It was a pleasure to heal. The dps took care of them selves really well too for the most part. I could run away from cracks w/ no problems and throw out stoneskin/regen/cures to DD and the tank hardly ever went red. I feel as if I could definitely solo heal this paladin with no problems if needed.

On inspecting their gear they only had 1 piece of af gear on and that was the body. Their hp was right around 4 k and they didn't feel like a mana sink when I was healing them. They had some sentinel gear and some +hp materia but nothing looked like it would be too crazy for the average player to obtain.

It was really fun healing you tonight, Lilly Grace. I'll heal you anytime. /salute You definitely changed my mind about paladins. If you ever need a heals for AV/CC/Ifrit or Mog feel free to send me a tell ^_^ b

Great, so if I want to tank on Paladin I have to go get Sentinel and +HP melded gear out the ass and ditch AF because it's apparently worthless. Meanwhile any WAR off the street in full AF can tank anything. Ridiculous.

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Originally Posted by Arcell

Great, so if I want to tank on Paladin I have to go get Sentinel and +HP melded gear out the ass and ditch AF because it's apparently worthless. Meanwhile any WAR off the street in full AF can tank anything. Ridiculous.

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I would use it and form your own opinion about the AF gear. The main issue people have with the AF gear, it has lots of healing stats and less tanking stats. The fact that sentinel gear is green level gear that accepts materia makes it look bad, when really sentinel just an over powered drop.

Sentinel's is not OP, I think the AF should be better than sentinel's. Paladin has to mix-and-match gear to different fights for sure. As it stands tanking on paladin is a lot of work, tanking on warrior isn't. So for every really good paladin there's 10 bad ones (not a fact, just observations maybe?) and for every really good war there is maybe 0.5 warrior's that are really bad (again, not fact, justobservations).

If paladin ever does get buffed, those really good ones will straight up own a whole lot of fights.

@Arcell I haven't healed many ls paladins when I do run w/ the ls I am usually healing Bales on war. I haven't healed you guys all that much really and strangely the server likes to go wonky often when I heal you guys lately. (Remember when it looked like you broke the Ifrit server lol and also I was healing them again a few days ago in some CC then to Ifrit and lost my character for about 4 days) Whenever I do heal you guys it's not like the most pug tanks I've encountered. I even made a comment in ls chat last night that "this feels like I'm healing a ls tank" Sera and PT can vouch for me lol. I can always tell you guys are working ~.^ and I am usually not sweating bullets trying to keep the tank up. Again, this is mostly about my random groups.

If you want to start a sentinel farming party I would gladly come to help get you guys the gear if you want it. I watched 2 pair of those boots drop in 10 min when myself, Redstone, and some random drg were farming tapers. Can be farmed w/ 2 drg and 1 whm pretty effectively apparently. I understand it was random luck but I don't mind helping farm.

You PLDs obviously did get the short end of the stick when it comes to tanking AF imo. That is my opinion I have formed at the moment. Who knows a pld in full af might blow my mind but right now gear is definitely a key to the puzzle and I also think it's the players play-style too. You pld tanks have your work cut out for yah that's for sure. No doubts there. I don't think the situation is as hopeless as I did though.

Well hopefully we'll see some more adjustments with 1.22. Honestly I can smell a WAR nerf coming already, even on its own merits, not even considering PLD vs WAR lol.

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Originally Posted by waldo

Sentinel's is not OP, I think the AF should be better than sentinel's.

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Sentinel's itself in not OP, its the fact you can meld materia to it. None of the other Stronghold drops are like that. Sentinel's is a green level item, which basically means equal to a single materia bind item. So when when you single bind it, it is equal to two materia binded item or blue item. I don't know what, but sentinel is an odd drop.