What's with Paladin?

It seems to have an insane amount of Button bloat (especially for AoE) compared to the other Tanks and has multiple abilities that pretty much do the same thing and has multiple things it needs to fill up for their abilities. Like their defensives being mostly the same thing. Wouldn't it make more sense to consolidate them and reduce the cooldown? It wasn't a fun experience. Went right back to Dark Knight and Warrior.

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Originally Posted by Tanis_Ebonhart

has multiple abilities that pretty much do the same thing

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Have you not seen healers?



I don't see how it has more AoE button bloat than any other class. PLD has just 3 AoE exclusive buttons, SAM for example has 6. But anyways, you did a right thing. If you don't like PLD because of that, go back to the jobs you like, you're not supposed to like every job and that's fine, just move on.

Paladin had too much button bloat, so you went back to... Dark Knight??

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Originally Posted by Tanis_Ebonhart

(...)insane amount of Button bloat (especially for AoE) compared to the other Tanks
(...)Went right back to Dark Knight and Warrior.

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Real talk and with all due respect, I don't think the bolded part has merit, that's one of the aspects where tanks feel pretty much all homogenized between them.

PLD has a 2-step combo, an oGCD, a spell, and a one-button spell combo. Those are 5, with 3 of those being exclusively for multiple targets.
WAR has a 2-step combo, an oGCD, a resource spending nuke, and a bigger nuke during Inner Release. Also 5, but with 4 of those being exclusively for multiple targets.
DRK has a 2-step combo, a (situational) oGCD, a resource spending oGCD and GCD, a one button 2-step spell combo, and an oGCD nuke. Those are 7! And 5 of those exclusively for AoE!

Isn't DRK the posterchild for button bloat though?

I mean I like it, and I like vomitting out all of my oGCDs it makes me feel cool, but I'm not going to act like our mitigation plans aren't really obtuse compared to other tanks which basically just hit their Short Mit + 20/30%.
Compared to us where we're regularly hitting TBN + Oblation + Dark Mind + 20/30%

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Originally Posted by Tanis_Ebonhart

It seems to have an insane amount of Button bloat (especially for AoE) compared to the other Tanks and has multiple abilities that pretty much do the same thing and has multiple things it needs to fill up for their abilities. Like their defensives being mostly the same thing. Wouldn't it make more sense to consolidate them and reduce the cooldown? It wasn't a fun experience. Went right back to Dark Knight and Warrior.

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What are you talking about? It's not much different to any other tank. Paladin has a lot of defensives but so does Dark Knight.

The defensives used to do different things, but those different things were useless (increase block rate that only worked on physical attacks, increase parry which only worked on physical attacks, buff the physical defense). SE removed all that stuff and made it raw % mitigation against magical and physical attacks. They might be the same but you need them all in some content, such as large pulls in dungeons or certain raids with a lot of tankbusters that want double mit.

Its rotation is now using the Gunbreaker model (I literally setup my hotbar for it to be the same as Gunbreaker). Aoe buttons aren't really much different to Gunbreaker either. Holy Circle/Fated Circle, Confiteor/Double Down, Total Eclipse/Demon Slice, Prominence/Demon Slaughter, Circle of Scorn/Bow Shock.

Only difference is Gunbreaker's Blasting Zone isn't aoe like Expiacion (see you in 7.0), and Double Down doesn't have a whole combo associated with it, but their single target Gnashing Fang does.

The only real "button bloat" you could argue on Paladin is Holy Spirit/Circle but that applies to every job due to SE's obsession with a single target and aoe equivalent on separate buttons. Otherwise, Circle of Scorn is... maybe a bit "bloaty"

Now if you wanted to say Paladin has some boring buttons, I'd be more inclined to agree. Goring Blade definitely feels lazy and Cover is in desperate need of a rework. Otherwise, it's more or less in line with the other tanks.

Is cover even worth it anymore?

I've used it to save melee in Dzmael Darkhold on the last boss, so situational I guess?

Cover has always been niche and situational, but I have definitely seen people use it in clever ways. Ultimately, if someone is about to die and you use cover on them before an aoe hits you can save them.

It could also be used to avoid needing a tankswap in some cases, by allowing you to take all the status effects and damage that the main tank would otherwise take, depending on how the cast works. It's also useful if for some reason you lose the attention of the boss or provoke is on cooldown. You can cover whoever the boss has as a target. If you die and rez and someone else is second in the enmity list, you could cover them to still take the tank buster or other mechanic.

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Originally Posted by Eorzean_username

Paladin had too much button bloat, so you went back to... Dark Knight??

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Dark Knight isn't that bad, as the system is simplier and the abilities are much more clear on what they're doing and how to set them up.

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Originally Posted by Tanis_Ebonhart

Dark Knight isn't that bad, as the system is simplier and the abilities are much more clear on what they're doing and how to set them up.

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PLD is just 1-2-3 and you get 1 stack Divine Might which you use for Holy Spirit and 3 stacks of Atonement. Then you have burst phase with FoF that you always use with Req, when you have Req, you just use your Faith combo. You use Goring in burst, use Intervene, Scorn and Explacion on CD, then you also want to drop 1-2 Atonement to properly realign. That's everything regarding rotation. It's like 2-3 steps away from just spamming 1-2-3, it's really simple if you spend 5-10 minutes reading tooltips/checking opener.

This simple imagine explains like 90% of PLD.
https://i.imgur.com/1XeKU4Y.png

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Originally Posted by Bsrking5

Is cover even worth it anymore?

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its situational thing, good if your healer needs to raise other healers in an alliance to prevent a wipe since you take the interrupt or dmg.

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Originally Posted by Tanis_Ebonhart

Dark Knight isn't that bad, as the system is simplier and the abilities are much more clear on what they're doing and how to set them up.

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Everyone approaches things from their own perspective, so I'm not trying to tell you your viewpoint is "wrong", just that I personally find it perplexing — I don't think I've ever encountered anyone who had the opinion that DRK was simpler and more intuitive than PLD.


Dark Knight:

• Has more situational defensives that have more potential failure states
• Has 3 different gauges to manage (1 of which is nearly completely pointless, but is still one more thing to keep track of before unloading your burst)
• Requires funky line positioning to use its AOE MP dump
• Has vaguely-convoluted burst tools that can be done "wrong" (becoming trapped into overcapping / wasting resources)
• Has a cacophony of redundant damage OGCDs that don't really do anything very unique, all bloating out its jam-packed burst windows and competing for weave-space
• Requires some minor amount of planning and set-up to achieve its full burst potential
• Has a semi-convoluted fake pet that's a fat chunk of your output, needs resources, and can have its uptime wasted if timed poorly
• Has a Tank Invuln that still manages to confuse healers and potentially accomplish nothing
• Cannot dig itself out of HP deficits past a certain point
• Easily becomes a healer headache if you overzealously spend MP or become too distracted while trying to xylophone out all your burst damage
• Has to facepull bosses if it wants to fit all of its service dog inside party buff windows

In contrast, Paladin is pretty damn chill:

• Doesn't even have an offensive gauge to monitor.
• Half your "utility" is clumsy and borderline-useless, and can just be ignored in most casual situations (Passage, Cover, Intervention, Clemency).
• Your only "procs" come after a single predictable trigger in both ST and AOE (Royal Authority / Prominence).
• You have exactly 2 damaging OGCDs to use, which have no resource cost, no deeper considerations or interactions, and can just be smashed the moment they dare to light up.
• You have some dash charges to blow if you have nowhere you need to go anytime soon (which is the same as every Tank).
• You don't have to think much about when or where to use your personal defensives, because they all work the same on basically everything.
• Your offensive "burst" does not require any subtlety at all (glue Req and FOF together, don't blow Req stacks on something unfortunate, spam Confiteor button until Req runs out).
• You can't even really "mess up" Paladin's burst unless you try, because all of the potencies are so close together that it barely matters what you slap to finish out FOF, as long as you don't somehow forget to press Goring Blade.
• Likewise, you can't really "flub" Paladin's rotation or "set up"; the worst thing you can do is use another RA / Prom while you still have Atonement or Divine Might stacks, but... er... just... don't do that.

To me, DRK just seems to be objectively more work, thinking, and keypresses than current PLD, especially during set-up and execution of burst cycles.

But even during "filler" periods, they're basically the same thing:

Spam 1-2-3 (Souleater / Royal Authority combo)
Sometimes press 4 (Bloodspiller / Holy Spirit)

Paladin adds "5", Atonement, but that's basically just 1-2-3 in disguise.

I guess DRK only has to remember to press its OGCDs every 60s, rather than every 30s? But, I have to admit, I've never really thought of "don't forget to press Expi / Scorn when they light up" as a potentially-burdensome aspect of PLD.

Think its also notable for DRK is that Blood Weapon and Delirium are never used apart, and ultimately just give you another button to press.

Not sure If I'd want them rolled into one skill or make one more unique from the other.

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Originally Posted by Deo14

PLD is just 1-2-3 and you get 1 stack Divine Might which you use for Holy Spirit and 3 stacks of Atonement. Then you have burst phase with FoF that you always use with Req, when you have Req, you just use your Faith combo. You use Goring in burst, use Intervene, Scorn and Explacion on CD, then you also want to drop 1-2 Atonement to properly realign. That's everything regarding rotation. It's like 2-3 steps away from just spamming 1-2-3, it's really simple if you spend 5-10 minutes reading tooltips/checking opener.

This simple imagine explains like 90% of PLD.
https://i.imgur.com/1XeKU4Y.png

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Dark Knight is feels more straight forward than that.

That sounds like a real pain compared to Warrior and Dark Knight while lacking flexibility.

Don't insult my intelligence. I didn't attack you, so why are you attacking me? Now I'm less inclined to believe anything you said.

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Originally Posted by Oizen

Think its also notable for DRK is that Blood Weapon and Delirium are never used apart, and ultimately just give you another button to press.

Not sure If I'd want them rolled into one skill or make one more unique from the other.

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Considering that they currently are used apart, at least in your opener and your 1-minute window, I would not want them to be a single button. Could this be fixed? Probably, but with how the job currently plays it would be an awful change.

Sweet mercy if people think PLD has button bloat this game is done for lol

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Originally Posted by Reimmi

Sweet mercy if people think PLD has button bloat this game is done for lol

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I wonder if anyone thinks Summoner and Machinist have button bloat.

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Originally Posted by Tanis_Ebonhart

Dark Knight is feels more straight forward than that.

That sounds like a real pain compared to Warrior and Dark Knight while lacking flexibility.

Don't insult my intelligence. I didn't attack you, so why are you attacking me? Now I'm less inclined to believe anything you said.

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I don't see why do you think I'm attacking your intelligence. Why would I even do that, it seems that you're capable of doing that yourself. But go ahead and don't believe in my explanation of PLD, which even includes mathematically optimal opener. You can believe whatever you want, you can even believe in such a hilarious things like that PLD has more bloat than DRK. You do you.

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Originally Posted by Reimmi

Sweet mercy if people think PLD has button bloat this game is done for lol

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Some people even think that NIN has button bloat, others believe that Kaiten was removed for button bloat or similar BS, while some seem to lead some sort of crusade to consolidate every barely related button together, without caring whether it makes any logical sense or not, for example turning Aeolian Edge into Raiju, or my favorite, consolidating Bhavacakra with Bunshin. Don't ask me why, or how would you track CD of Bunshin. Some guy even came with his own bullshit phrase "button inflation" because he's too lazy to learn how to use 3rd/4th cross hotbar.

Button bloat has lost all of it's original meaning, just like every new internet phrase does in a week.

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Originally Posted by Tanis_Ebonhart

Dark Knight is feels more straight forward than that.

That sounds like a real pain compared to Warrior and Dark Knight while lacking flexibility.

Don't insult my intelligence. I didn't attack you, so why are you attacking me? Now I'm less inclined to believe anything you said.

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this is like a straightforward explanation of paladin rotation with a simple recovery if anyone fumbles. Not sure how you think they are insulting your intelligence.

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Originally Posted by Tanis_Ebonhart

Dark Knight is feels more straight forward than that.

That sounds like a real pain compared to Warrior and Dark Knight while lacking flexibility.

Don't insult my intelligence. I didn't attack you, so why are you attacking me? Now I'm less inclined to believe anything you said.

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That wasn't even close to a personal attack. No need to get super defensive and double down on your bad take. Being able to admit one was wrong is a beautiful trait in humans.

You could say it's personal preferences, that's fine. But don't blame it on something like button bloat of all things cuz that's just not true.

I’m almost sure OP is upset for being implied of not reading their tooltip from this sentence:

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Originally Posted by Deo14

[…]it's really simple if you spend 5-10 minutes reading tooltips/checking opener[…]

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This is one of those interactions of why I 99% of time stopped trying to convince Freecure mages away from their life calling, lmao.

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Originally Posted by Deo14

you also want to drop 1-2 Atonement to properly realign

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Dropping Atonements was unnecessary even before the 6.4 changes. With the 6.4 changes Atonement no longer cancels combos, so you can safely hold one or two for FoF or to get better timing on your combo refresh.

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Originally Posted by Rongway

Dropping Atonements was unnecessary even before the 6.4 changes. With the 6.4 changes Atonement no longer cancels combos, so you can safely hold one or two for FoF or to get better timing on your combo refresh.

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The reason to drop them was so you could be ready to have Divine Might/Holy Spirit into Royal Authority into Divine Might/Holy Spirit.

This is still necessary if you want the highest potency in the burst and to start the burst immediately as Fight or Flight comes back. It's nice that they don't cancel the combo, but it doesn't change how Divine Mights don't stack up to 3 or 4, which is what would be needed to prevent someone having to be just beyond Riot Blade in their combo before a burst. 4 just so we account for skill speed builds that would allow for more in the burst window.

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Originally Posted by MsMisato

this is like a straightforward explanation of paladin rotation with a simple recovery if anyone fumbles. Not sure how you think they are insulting your intelligence.

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Their last part of their post was a passive aggressive insult to my intelligence. It isn't hard to notice. They has no reason to imply I didn't read other than to attack me personally.

I'm shocked I have to explain it. It's obvious what their intent is.

That's why they're on ignore.

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Originally Posted by Tanis_Ebonhart

Their last part of their post was a passive aggressive insult to my intelligence. It isn't hard to notice. They has no reason to imply I didn't read other than to attack me personally.

I'm shocked I have to explain it. It's obvious what their intent is.

That's why they're on ignore.

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It should be mandatory for some people to play DotA every now and then so they can grow some skin.

https://i.imgur.com/YMCiVVu.png

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Originally Posted by Tanis_Ebonhart

Their last part of their post was a passive aggressive insult to my intelligence. It isn't hard to notice. They has no reason to imply I didn't read other than to attack me personally.

I'm shocked I have to explain it. It's obvious what their intent is.

That's why they're on ignore.

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It's also a common stereo type in here that players don't read their tooltips and don't know their rotations.
If that's all it takes for you to put on ignore, that's a you problem. Not everything is a personal attack. This sounds more like a playful jab at the community.

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Originally Posted by Deo14

It's like 2-3 steps away from just spamming 1-2-3, it's really simple if you spend 5-10 minutes reading tooltips/checking opener.

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Originally Posted by Tanis_Ebonhart

Their last part of their post was a passive aggressive insult to my intelligence. It isn't hard to notice. They has no reason to imply I didn't read other than to attack me personally.

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They're just stating a fact, it's obviously not a personal attack at all.

They're literally just saying, "Paladin is simple enough to execute that you can pretty much figure it out just from reading all your tooltips, and then finish off your work by searching up the community's optimized opener, after which the Job will basically play itself".

It's just commentary intended to reinforce their argument that Paladin isn't bloated or complicated compared to other Jobs.

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Originally Posted by Tanis_Ebonhart

It seems to have an insane amount of Button bloat (especially for AoE) compared to the other Tanks and has multiple abilities that pretty much do the same thing and has multiple things it needs to fill up for their abilities. Like their defensives being mostly the same thing. Wouldn't it make more sense to consolidate them and reduce the cooldown? It wasn't a fun experience. Went right back to Dark Knight and Warrior.

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PLD does have button bloat, but so does DRK. WAR is the only Tank that doesn't have a lot of fat to trim. PLD definitely is on the higher end of bloat, but not unique in this respect. AST is pretty bad, DRG is pretty bad, NIN is somewhat bad, DRK is kinda bad, SCH is somewhat bad, and so on.

All of the Tanks have multiple similar abilities on similar CDs where, honestly, they could just give you the basic ability or two and give it charges. For example, does WAR really need Vengeance (120 sec, 30% damage reduction and small potency reflected damage for 15 sec), Rampart (90 sec, 20% damage reduction, 20 sec), Reprisal (60 sec, 10% damage reduction, 10 sec), and Bloodwhetting (25 sec, ~19% reduction for 4 sec, 10% reduction for 8 sec) instead of just normalizing this to one or two abilities with charges?

This is true of all the Tanks, btw, a lot of the Healers, and a lot of the Damage Dealers, where Jobs have several abilities that do borderline the same thing or even EXACTLY the same thing, and sometimes used in tandem, such that half the cases could be to just give the ability charges, and the other half could be handled by just boosting the power of the single ability. For example, PLD never is going to use Fight or Flight without Requiescat. So why are there two buttons for this? Just have Fight or Flight trait up to Requiescat to trigger its effects, and stick the damage from Requiescat into either Goring or Confetior. Or remove Goring, too - you never use it alone outside of this combo, either - and just fold its damage into Confetior.

Expacion and Circle of Scorn both are oGCDs and both have the exact same 30 sec CDs. Why are these two distinct buttons? Why not just have Circle do Spirits Within's damage + 120 potency to the target and then the 120 potency spash damage to all surrounding enemies and the DoT to all of them? Why is this a separate button at this point in the game's life? Spirits Within can upgrade to Circle of Scorn can upgrade to Expacion. Saved another hotbar slot there.

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The problem is, then people will complain that it's "dumbed down" and "homogenized".

Even though those changes wouldn't make it either - buttons you have just to have them and to EVERY SO SLIGHTLY increase a chance of mistake, not by lack of skill but by accident/fat-fingering, are not matters of skill or brainpower to have.

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That said, if you worry about this with PLD...why on earth would you go to DRK or especially WAR, which are even MORE that way? o.O

EDIT:

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

The only real "button bloat" you could argue on Paladin is Holy Spirit/Circle but that applies to every job due to SE's obsession with a single target and aoe equivalent on separate buttons. Otherwise, Circle of Scorn is... maybe a bit "bloaty"

Now if you wanted to say Paladin has some boring buttons, I'd be more inclined to agree. Goring Blade definitely feels lazy and Cover is in desperate need of a rework. Otherwise, it's more or less in line with the other tanks.

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Holy Spirit/Circle are the part of this I WOULDN'T call button bloat, unless you think it should just be one that does both effects? Like Holy Spirit, but it now has AOE falloff so you don't need a separate button for AOE, but then why have 1-2 AOE as a distinct combo at all?

Like I said above, Circle of Scorn/Expaciation is bloat (they have an identical CD, are both AOE, and you'll never use them individually, always together), Fight or Flight and Requiescat same story (or alternatively, Requiescat being combined with Confetior; either way its damage would go to Confetior), Goring Blade and Confetior same story again. That's three buttons that could be removed/combined and nothing of value would be lost; the rotation wouldn't even change except you'd get one other GCD during Requiescat. If Holy Spirit was just always instant, they could give it to you as level 15 (and give it the boost agro effect) and you wouldn't need Shield Lob anymore.

There are other things you could do, like combine Shelltron and Intervention like GNB, but that would change how it's played a bit and be more homogenization, the above combinations really wouldn't be.

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There are definitely some things on some Jobs that are "Why is this an extra button?", "Why is this button on this Job?", or even "Why does this button even exist?", but not everything is that way.

There are valid things to say are bloat, but not everything is. And the definition of bloat will vary from person to person, so it's not always easy to nail it down. (Personally, I go with the "Doesn't interact with any other part of the kit, is used on CD/never held, is always used with some other button to the point combining their effects would not change anything, is never used or so rarely used/has such a narrow use case that it doesn't justify being a button/hotbar slot, or some combination of the above". It's not perfect, but is probably a pretty good working definition. Note that SOME situational/rarely used buttons are fine, but they need to have interesting and useful effects. For all the flack Cover gets, it can be very useful in some cases - a group cleared TOP with no Healer by using Cover to get through/cheese a mechanic, and people have given some uses for it in prog or 24 mans in this thread. Shield Bash is a love/hate with me because it's pretty useful in stuff like PotD but not so much elsewhere, though it could just as easily have its effect combined with something else [Shield Lob, for example] and wouldn't alter the rotation or gameplay any at all in 99.999% of content...and possibly 100% - they even have the same Potency. XD

There are other Jobs that are far worse, actually having things that are never used unless something horrible has happened that should never happen anyway, or that have effects that are redundant with other things.)

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Originally Posted by Rongway

Dropping Atonements was unnecessary even before the 6.4 changes. With the 6.4 changes Atonement no longer cancels combos, so you can safely hold one or two for FoF or to get better timing on your combo refresh.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

The reason to drop them was so you could be ready to have Divine Might/Holy Spirit into Royal Authority into Divine Might/Holy Spirit.

This is still necessary

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Dropping Atonements was unnecessary before and it's even worse now.

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Originally Posted by The Balance #pld_resources (nikroula, 22 May 2023)

• hardcasting or dropping atonements to force 2hs FoF windows is significantly worse than the priority rotation now due to Atonement buffs and Atonement no longer breaking combo, allowing us to fix previously weak FoF windows
• In addition to holding HS procs for FoF windows where possible, you should now also attempt to hold Atonements for FoF when possible, taking care to spend any remaining stacks before pressing Royal Authority.

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