Paladin's unused skill rework

Hello fellow Paladin.

Haven't you ever feeled that Shield Bash, Cover and Clemency are useless ? (Or at best, use in rare occasion ?). Well this post is here for that. Let's try to remake some of the skills that paladin have that can't be used through the entirety of the game, and make them in the line of what SE do (So we can give them good idea).

Therefore, here is the idea I have :

Shield Bash => Sacred Shield Bash (Lvl 66) (oGCD)

Potency : 300
CD : 60

What would be better than using your shield to slap the face of your enemy ? Well, a Sacred Shield Bash were your enemy will feel the warm energy of the Light clapping their cheeks ! Right in their face ! The idea behind that is not to add an other damaging oGCD, but to replace Intervene completely. Intervene is a Damaging gap closer that we must put through our burst twice in order to maximise our damage output. The downside of that are multiple. If you dash on your target outside of your burst window, you lose dps. Also, if you do use it in either way, you suffer from a slight animation lock, rendering you unable to move for a second. Sacred Shield Bash tend to remove all this problem, and allow Intervene to be transform into a Non-damaging gap closer, giving us mobility just like other fellow tanks.

Sacred Shield Bash could also become a Conal AoE (like the JcJ version) and deal 60% less damage to collateral target. We have a shield, let's use it in a good way.

Cover => Removed

That skill is absolute garbage to begin with. You take every damage your allie should take, but without any mitigation form (Not even your native 20%). And you can't mitigate through it, not even with Hallowed Ground. Also, cost 50 Gauge for poor effect. Let's remove it, their is no point in such a skill that only suicide your tank.

Clemency => Clemency (oGCD)

Potency : 1600
Can target allies.
CD : 60 Sec

I've always wondered why Clemency was such a DPS loss when you have Tank like WAR that heal themselves for a HUGE amount with no drawback at all, where we have to stop DPS AND spend 2.000 MP ! You may be saying that 1600 Potency is utterly broken. Shall I remind you that Equilibrium for the war is essentially 2200 Potency ? So, at the cost of 600 Potency, we have the ability to target allies with it. It make a huge burst of heal for a target (Especially good if your are an OT) but doesn't do anything else, keeping the essence of what Clemency is.

Shield Lob => Holy Spirit (Become the evolution of Shield Lob)

Let's be honest, Shield Lob is never used to pull boss because the Potency difference between Shield Lob and Holy Spirit is a whooping 300 Potency.

So, let's make Holy Spirit always instant but nerf it significantly when not used under Divine Might or Resquiecat, and still generate more Enmity. If used under Divine Might or Resquiescat, Holy Spirit will NOT generate more Enmity, but only the normal amount. With a base potency of 150, that allow it to be equal with the other Tank ranged option. Also, this way we gain a button because Shield Lob dissapear.

Please share your ideas and opinions on this post in order to rework some of the most useless spell the Paladin have !

I'm gonna go over what I'd change personally about PLD's kit, as I have some differing opinions, I disagree with removing cast times on holy spirit too i like the cast pull personally and dont think cover needs to be removed.

Removed - Healing on magic attacks, to compensate for adding a Heal per 1000, this should be a massive heal loss every minute but would let you effectively choose when you wanna use that healing.

Clemency - Stays the same, Every 60's you will get a gauge stack that lets you spend a use of ogcd instant clemency.

Holy Sheltron (and Intervention) - Merged with intervention, reduce the cooldown so you can still double mit, now the mitigation is 20% for 8s(no stacked effect) with a Regen of 200 potency for 18s, normal sheltron will have a 150 potency regen for 12s. (I also think other tank CD's shouldn't have stacked mitigations)

Cover - No longer costs oath gauge and cleanses debuffs on you and your target, both will not take any knockbacks.

Goring Blade - Removed from fight or flight, now is back to being a combo finisher skill, Goring blade will grant your next royal authority atonement and holy spirit stacks.

Shield Bash - OGCD stun attack, in a conel shape it has two charges on a 30s cooldown.

You never used cover + hallowed ground?

Also PLD already has a free oGCD heal to pass to allies with Intervention, for a total of 1000 potency. On a 10s~22.4s cooldown. Clemency's an emergency tool for when things have gone terribly enough that the entire party's dps is kinda cooked as it is.

Please don't just turn shield bash into another ogcd damage ability. I understand it is functionally useless in anything boss related but there's a lot of utility in having a spammable stun.

"Cover" and "Clemency (a casted heal)" are what I would consider an integral part of a knight's/paladin's identity within Final Fantasy. (Maybe I'm leaning too heavily on Cecil from FFIV.)

If anything, the change should be to encounter design to give these actions an opportunity to shine -- or at least feel useful -- more frequently.

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Originally Posted by Xikaz

Please don't just turn shield bash into another ogcd damage ability. I understand it is functionally useless in anything boss related but there's a lot of utility in having a spammable stun.

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No offense, the utility peaks in Deep Dungeon solo runs. Anything beyond that, Shield Bash is a trash ability. There is no realistic scenario where you want shield bash with its diminishing returns and tiny damage vs just Low Blow and blasting.

It should be a proper damage ability, maybe not one that stuns but one that has other benefits. Maybe a burst in oath gauge (+20-25).

Tbh I'm fine with Shield Bash remaining as-is because it doesn't impact PLD's power budget at all, it's just kind of there. Like the devs essentially never have to consider whether adding X thing to PLD is too much just because Shield Bash exists. It's also not rotational, so it can kind of just.... Exist.

I wish more jobs had niche, non-rotational utility like it.

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Originally Posted by Xikaz

Please don't just turn shield bash into another ogcd damage ability. I understand it is functionally useless in anything boss related but there's a lot of utility in having a spammable stun.

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Theirs literally no utility into having a spammable stun.

I want to use my shield as the shield class.

Cover I have to use a good amount of times. I don't see why it would be remove, if anything using it during critical moments or saving the healer/caster who can rezz makes it so strong. What I see I believe it's an oath gauge spender. He'll sometimes I just throw Cover out for the lolz

Are you really playing Paladin so restrictively that you don't use these skills? Weird.

cover is so useful when a situation goes shit honestly I am a bit pissed that paladin doesn't have more support move well it could apply to also to all healers but point stand

I have a few pain points with some of these ideas. importantly a Paladin without Cover is just not Paladin. its the button that FF's Paladin heavily resolves around overall. Clemancy being brought to a 60s OGCD while sounds fine on paper, it destroys the fact that Clemancy is an on demand heal that is incredibly useful in a recovery scenario.

My Ideas;

I'd rather Shield Lob and Holy Spirit to be kept separate overall as both also serve a different use case despite HS generally winning out from it's higher potency. if anything, bump shield lob to 150 potency.

Cover is channeled and have a baked in 10%-15% mit into it for the PLD. gauge needed to stay at 50, but initially costs 10 gauge, but then every 3-4 secs, it continues to take 10 gauge until the button is pressed again to disengage the button or the oath gauge runs out. if either happens PLD gets back about 15% of the total HP from damage redirected from cover. the original target will still get the debuff.

want a shield based OGCD cleave. we have an old action that can be brought back for that purpose. Shield Swipe. make it a cleave, but also make it that it reduces the damage that enemies deal by 5% for 5-10 seconds so there is a reason you do want to use it.

shield bash, keep as a GCD. only added effect i would say is to make the potency scale from the melee mastery traits to make it about 300-340 potency in the end. and also to make the stun unscalable. (it will always be a 6s stun)

a system change would be a new trait that PLD learns upon learning Req called spell blade, the effect: the recast of spells are also scaled from Skill Speed effects. this change will make PLD to be more able to run at a more flexible GCD.

I really want cover to allow me to dash towards the selected Ally. It'd make it so much more useful in Alliances in giant arenas where the healer needs help, but I'm not close enough to use cover.

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Originally Posted by Venks

I really want cover to allow me to dash towards the selected Ally. It'd make it so much more useful in Alliances in giant arenas where the healer needs help, but I'm not close enough to use cover.

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Yeah like in PvP, it's such an awesome skill there. I wish they'd merge stun into the charge like in PvP, too. And make Shield Bash an active block where you raise the shield, if that blocks an autoattack you can bash which deals high damage.

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Originally Posted by TabrisOmbrelame

Hello fellow Paladin.

Haven't you ever feeled that Shield Bash, Cover and Clemency are useless ? (Or at best, use in rare occasion ?).

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For me there is a massive difference between useless and rarely used. Useless is bad, rarely used is fun and interesting. It's a break from rigid rotations and following a script. In that sense I'd argue that the skills you're changing are well designed because you have to know when to use them to benefit from them. I'll admit that Shield Bash is a reach when it comes to real utility, but conceptually I think it's fine. Cover is an amazing skill, though it might have been nerfed too hard. It's fun to spot opportunities to use it. Clemency is an emergency or non standard party composition tool. Shield Lob is sort of like Bash, but it doesn't take MP so I guess there is that over HS.

They need to roll cover into holy shelltron and let you target other people with it so it can be used to transfer the damage to the paladin. Then allow for intervention to be the non-cover variation. Would make cover 100% better and kill a button. Not sure where people are using shield bash at, but I think the skill is pretty much dead. Since they are slowly starting to give tanks everything, I don't see why they don't steal from FF11 again and bring in reprisal from 11 and stick it to bulwark. Add a minor stun effect to it for normal enemies.

We gonna have to duke it out in the wolves den pier if you're going after my cover. One of the most useful skills in the game. also the last thing I need is more buttons to press that do nothing unique like your shield bash on an already bloated kit.

I posted here earlier, I'm mostly going to talk about clemency but If any of you played Occult crescent and have done phantom knight Occult Heal (being 2500 MP while playing PLD) is actually a good example to make clemency more relevant for all types of content without ruining its utility and help for emergency situations.

If we lets say removed healing from Paladins magic attacks (maybe some other stuff too if its more self healing then before) but exchanged reworked Clemency to be a ogcd with a short recast that costs MP still (around the same amount should be fine) it becomes a tool where you have to manage your MP if you want good useage out of it, but can also be used as a emergency tool in exchange for ruining your burst if spammed to much. I actually think something like that for clemency could work very well.

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Originally Posted by Reinhardt_Azureheim

No offense, the utility peaks in Deep Dungeon solo runs. Anything beyond that, Shield Bash is a trash ability. There is no realistic scenario where you want shield bash with its diminishing returns and tiny damage vs just Low Blow and blasting.

It should be a proper damage ability, maybe not one that stuns but one that has other benefits. Maybe a burst in oath gauge (+20-25).

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Well, it doesn't need to get removed. Keep shield bash, add a new ogcd that is what OP suggested.
if you don't ever use shield bash, dont keybind it. There is nothing wrong with situatioinal abilities, in fact the game needs way, way more of them, if it's about new players being confused just add a tab at the bottom for the "situational" abilities in the spell book

PLD does indeed need some changes to its kit, but the changes can only do so much if the overall game content is not allowed to hit us more often to compensate



Goring Blade as a combo ender needs to return at all costs, totally unacceptable to lose our combo yet WAR retains both of theirs

as others have said before, Cover needs to return to its former glory, and Holy Sheltron reduced to 30 oath would be a nice change too

Holy Spirit/circle need to be given to us early like how WAR gets Inner Release/Steel Cyclone in ARR content (why the other jobs' equivalents are also locked so late is beyond me. give us weak versions and buff them with traits later)