Paladin - A little too simple?

Starting off I will say as an endgame paladin, I currently like this job, and for the most part we're pretty balanced. My only balance concern is how much we rely on Flash for Add Tanking and how late we get Circle of Scorn.

Paladin is my first (and currently only) job to 50, and I'm currently in the process of getting Warrior to 50. That said I didn't come here to compare WAR with PLD because that just defeats the purpose of this thread. I don't want Paladin to be more like Warrior, because there's no point in having two tanks working the same way.

But I will say Warrior as a whole has more complex mechanics that takes time to figure out, while Paladin is more of a "what you see, is what you get" type of job. We have the most basic rotation in the entire game, only given slight more complexity once you get Spirits Within and Circle of Scorn. Our defensive cooldowns do their job and I like them, and I always attempt to use the best cooldown for the situation, but they're very simple. When off-tanking, we have Fast Blade > Riot Blade to avoid grabbing too much threat off the MT, and when enmity is solidified, we can switch to our Halone combo.

Which leads me to Sword Oath. Call me naive, but I was hoping for a stronger balance between this and Shield Oath. To be frank, Sword Oath does too little to compete with Shield Oath as a MT, and perhaps this was by design (it's hard to beat 20% damage reduction). When I initially saw these these abilities, I was hoping we'd have to stance dance and use them at the appropriate times, but Sword Oath is too plain as a DPS stance, while Shield Oath is, in a similar manner, too plain as a tank stance.

As a whole, I feel Paladin doesn't have much complexity and is too straightforward as a job. You stack VIT, you get as much defense as possible, and you mitigate as much as possible. No curveballs, no buts, or anything of that sort. Though, I will give credit where it's due. Stun being on GCD allows for interesting application, and Add tanking as a Paladin is challenging in comparison to Warrior.

I'm not here to scream the sky is falling and SE needs to do something. I'm just here to ask if other Paladins feel similarly.

start solo tanking end game bosses if you want more to challenge you

PAL needs the Riot Blade combo to get extended to a third that's "got" to be used once every 2-3 Halone combos. Some people have suggested adding some type of self-heal, though, personally, I think they need to rip the 10% Str redux from Halone and put it on the Riot Blade extension, if only to balance out the need for WAR to rotate into Storm's Eye every time. Either that or give an mp cost to Halone so that you have to swap in Riot Blades to maintain resources. The fact that all PAL has to do is spam Halone because it applies debuff *and* is the max enmity/damage rotation makes them both boring and *way* better at WAR for enmity generation (same damage but they get to spam their high enmity combo 100% of the time rather than 50-66% of the time).

PAL is boring because there isn't any complexity *at all*. You have a single AoE threat ability and a single damage/threat combo. Riot Blade only exists to recover mp after you've bottomed yourself from Flash spam so, unless there's a *lot* of add tanking in a single fight that can't be handled with target swapping, you really just use Halone ad infinitum because Halone does *everything*. On top of that, it's not like *anything* that PALs have has a downside to its use so it's all incredibly straightforward. Hell, even their AoE has no downside since it doesn't impact their ability to use ST attacks (because it costs MP rather than TP) and doesn't break CC.

I don't want PAL to be the same as WAR, nor should it be, but it most definitely needs to be fixed such that it's not just a single combo spam that does absolutely everything that you could ever want. It needs a reason to use Riot Blade, which it really doesn't have. It needs to have some stuff that actually has a potential downside so that you actually have some choices to make, rather than just having a single option that's the explicit *best* option for any given scenario.

PLD is extremely simple and I wish the job was far less passive than it currently is.

I suggested the following in another thread, and I still believe it would be a great change without causing serious imbalance.

Bulwark as we know it should be completely changed from a buff skill, to a weapon skill that combos from Riot Blade which would also be tweaked slightly to provide it with some synergy with the new focus of the combo - mitigation. The new Fast Blade > Riot Blade > Bulwark combo would work like this:

Riot Blade
Delivers an attack with a potency of 100.
Combo Action: Fast Blade
Combo Potency: 230
Combo Bonus: Restores MP,
Shield block the next magical or physical attack
Duration 1 second.

Bulwark
Deliver a shield attack with a potency of 100
Combo Action: Riot Blade
Combo Potency: 200
Combo Effect with Riot Blade: Increase block rate by 40%
Duration 5 seconds.

This would give PLD more of an active role in that they need to constantly evaluate whether more enmity is required (via Halone combo) or more mitigation is required (via Bulwark combo).

The idea is that you can time Riot Blade to help mitigate particularly damaging attacks that you know are coming, and that the buff from Bulwark is reduced in potency and duration from it's original and the duration is low enough that you cannot maintain 100% uptime on it even if you spam that combo. Starting a Halone combo will see your Bulwark wear off shortly after Savage Blade, leaving you without the buff for at least 10 seconds. Additionally, even spamming the new Bulwark combo will see your shield block buff drop for 2.5 seconds per cycle but it wears off just around the same time you use Riot Blade. This is to try and move away from the mindless 1 2 3 spam we currently employ, and promote use of good timing, and force tanks to focus more heavily on what they are doing, and what is coming next.

You would lose hate if you had another combo to work in. That's not an assumption or a guess, it is a fact.

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Originally Posted by Churchill

You would lose hate if you had another combo to work in. That's not an assumption or a guess, it is a fact.

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Threat management is what this change forces you to consider, but your assertion that doing anything other than Halone for 7.5 seconds would immediately drop you from the top of the enmity table is simply wrong.

The assertion in the OP was the it would be a necessary combo. Paladin doesn't have that kind of hate margin. Paladin has almost no hate margin just using Rage of Halone.

I agree and I'll add what I've suggested before. Remove a bit of mitigation (boring) and add a healing combo that uses cure as a finisher.

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Originally Posted by Churchill

The assertion in the OP was the it would be a necessary combo. Paladin doesn't have that kind of hate margin. Paladin has almost no hate margin just using Rage of Halone.

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I see, you were replying to OP.

Indeed forcing a PLD to use another combo every 2-3 Halones would seriously harm enmity gain in the early stages of a fight that involves immediate heavy healing - Titan for example. However, after a minute or two in any type of encounters your threat margin is actually really quite large.

I wouldn't mind another combo to use. It does get a little tedious using the Halone combo all the time.
Halone combo, shield toss, flash, not much to do. I use scorn when I can for a little bit more dps and enmity, but I really wish scorn at least had an enmity state like Halone ro savage blade.

Only time I find keeping hate is when I have a bunch of people that like to spam AoEs on every pull and not fight marked targets.

I do like the idea of a decent cure combo to produce enmity, I find cure in XIV for paladin is meaningless compared to paladin cure in XI. As a paladin in XI, cure was part of my rotation for threat.

As others have mentioned, PLD doesn't get that big of a hate margin as some people like to think. My static started working on Titan last night, and our WHM kept pulling hate off me at least once a fight. Wasn't missing Halone combo GCDs, popped CDs appropriately, etc. but the WHM still was pulling that much threat. Add a non-Halone combo requirement into the mix and I wouldn't even bother trying to tank this fight.

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Originally Posted by Churchill

The assertion in the OP was the it would be a necessary combo. Paladin doesn't have that kind of hate margin. Paladin has almost no hate margin just using Rage of Halone.

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So they'd be just like a WAR? PLD and WAR tanks do effectively the same damage. WAR has to use its high enmity combo only 66% of the time compared to the 100% of the time that PAL gets. The PAL enmity combo is also a 10x multiplier rather than an 8x multiplier.

Saying that PLD has issues with enmity generation simply demonstrates that you're ignorant of WAR.

It's common for a WHM to pull hate in Titan around his first or second jump - this is not your fault, and it's what Shroud of Saints is for.

Your WHM will have been trying to conserve Shroud for MP purposes, but once forced to use it for hate purposes it will be popped immediately once off cooldown for the remainder of the fight. (By time its back up it is required to keep MP up regardless).

I have extremely well geared WHM and PLD and I have played both extensively in many, many Titan runs. Trust me, any WHM worth his salt wont be close to your threat after the heart is dead.

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Originally Posted by Kitru

So they'd be just like a WAR? PLD and WAR tanks do effectively the same damage. WAR has to use its high enmity combo only 66% of the time compared to the 100% of the time that PAL gets. The PAL enmity combo is also a 10x multiplier rather than an 8x multiplier.

Saying that PLD has issues with enmity generation simply demonstrates that you're ignorant of WAR.

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Can you take your WAR BS to an appropriate thread? This has absolutely nothing to do with WAR. Thanks.

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Originally Posted by Jahaudant

Can you take your WAR BS to an appropriate thread? This has absolutely nothing to do with WAR. Thanks.

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Except that the argument is that PLD wouldn't be able to hold threat if they were forced to not do Halone every single time. The supposition that PLD is somehow struggling to maintain threat when they end up maintaining threat better than the other tank thanks to spamming their high enmity combo ad infinitum is a legitimate counterargument to it.

If PLD were forced to use a non-high enmity combo for 1 out of every 3 combo strings, they would be no worse off than a WAR.

Now, if you want to argue that argue that all tanks need to have their enmity increased (or that the current PLD threat state is the proper level), then you could argue that any rework of the PLD rotation should be accompanied by a commensurate increase in the enmity modifier of Halone (which would also necessitate doing the same for Butcher's Block, but, as previously stated, that's not part of this discussion) to account for the decrease predicated by being "forced" to use a non-enmity combo.

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Originally Posted by Kitru

So they'd be just like a WAR? PLD and WAR tanks do effectively the same damage. WAR has to use its high enmity combo only 66% of the time compared to the 100% of the time that PAL gets. The PAL enmity combo is also a 10x multiplier rather than an 8x multiplier.

Saying that PLD has issues with enmity generation simply demonstrates that you're ignorant of WAR.

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Warrior does more damage, that's why they hold single target threat better than a Paladin does. The reason healers can creep on them in high healing fights (anything past Titan) is because they do that other combo. If all a Warrior ever did was Butcher's Block, no healer would ever touch them outside of spamming Medica II for shits. Paladin does not have that buffer because they don't do as much damage and that's exactly why a Warrior can catch up to a Paladin with ease even if they spend two minutes dealing with adds.

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Originally Posted by Jahaudant

I see, you were replying to OP.

Indeed forcing a PLD to use another combo every 2-3 Halones would seriously harm enmity gain in the early stages of a fight that involves immediate heavy healing - Titan for example. However, after a minute or two in any type of encounters your threat margin is actually really quite large.

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You'll come across stuff later where that 2 minutes is all you have, and things even later than that where there is little relief at all.

Kitru is convinced that paladins do as much damage as warriors..... I could see having a different combo being very useful. I just recently hit level 50, so I haven't had the chance to do some of the battles mentioned here. However I have tanked in just about every MMO out there. While threat may be an issue in some situations it definitely should not be in most if WHM is using the agro reduction ability. I could see numerous potential applications of a mitigation combo going forward without even knowing the fights.

The only problem I see here is that if we were to receive another type of mitigation it may tip the warrior/paladin balance. Several highly skilled warriors aren't really haven't problems with balance vs paladin, though this combo proposal could change things.

Continued-
With that being said, I find using the current combo somewhat challenging for aoe agro since I have to know how much threat is on every mob, so its pretty fun. I try to stay away from using Flash unless I have to agro a ton of mobs 4+ because well Flash is kind of crappy while barely holding enough agro over aoe spam and it slows down any damage I want to add to the group. The current setup for Paladins reminds me of Tanking in Aion or Warriors in wow during Vanilla/BC when you had to manage agro on each mob individually since at that time there was no easy mode aoe(thunderclap/devastate) spam.

Continued again >_> post restrictions:
On single target tanking situations though it is a bit boring. I find myself hoping to be required to dodge a frontal attack or aoe for some excitement...lol....I hope they do make single target tanking more difficult and require more skill aside from timing mitigation. They could even just add a plain damage attack after Riot Blade that does not have increased threat but offers more damage. To take that even further, it could require you to stance dance into sword oath to use.

^You can bypass the character limit by just editing your post. And I do find Add tanking more fun than main tanking as PLD.

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Originally Posted by Soulburn32

start solo tanking end game bosses if you want more to challenge you

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I have. Lack of challenge isn't exactly the issue I'm having though. It's the lack of options.

Which is something that is rather tricky to implement on a job that is, for all intents and purposes, in a good place in terms of balance. We have abilities that are just junk for the most part (Shield Swipe, almost every cross-class skill), and the rest just serves to mitigate damage. Sword Oath is outright terrible to use as a MT for anything endgame-related as well. But while we can poke and prod at the individual issues that Paladin has, it doesn't negate the fact that Paladin as a whole is a job that works.

As for the current topic at hand, I feel if anyone wants to add more complexity to Paladin, it should start with changing Sword Oath to make it more competitive with Shield Oath.

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Originally Posted by Tanaya

We have abilities that are just junk for the most part (Shield Swipe, almost every cross-class skill)

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I find this to be very true. Most of the abilities that we can use cross-class seem like they might be neat, but for the most part don't really bring much to the table, especially once you get towards end-game content.
The CNJ abilities are okay at best but only when soloing and cure is pretty much useless.
The MRD abilities are a little better. I use Bloodbath+Flight/Fight+Convalescence together in boss fights to slow my health degrading if the healer needs some help.

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Originally Posted by Churchill

Warrior does more damage, that's why they hold single target threat better than a Paladin does. The reason healers can creep on them in high healing fights (anything past Titan) is because they do that other combo. If all a Warrior ever did was Butcher's Block, no healer would ever touch them outside of spamming Medica II for shits.

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Shield Oath is -20% dmg. Defiance is -25% dmg. So even though WAR's threat combo does a little more dmg than PLD, the stance penalty should cause the WAR to do less dmg over all if they purely spam their threat combo.

In order to outdps a PLD, a WAR must do the maim combo every 1-2 rotations (1 for max up time on storm's eye debuff, every 2 for better threat generation). This makes it very likely WAR will generate less single target threat in the end.

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Originally Posted by Tanaya

Sword Oath is outright terrible to use as a MT for anything endgame-related as well. But while we can poke and prod at the individual issues that Paladin has, it doesn't negate the fact that Paladin as a whole is a job that works.

As for the current topic at hand, I feel if anyone wants to add more complexity to Paladin, it should start with changing Sword Oath to make it more competitive with Shield Oath.

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Sword Oath = DPS, Shield Oath = tanking. Say off tanking Garuda HM (if I understand the fight correctly), you'd use Sword Oath to DPS, then swap to Shield Oath to tank adds, then back to sword oath to DPS the boss.

It's actually preferable to the WAR who needs to drop Defiance to DPS. When you reapply Defiance, you don't get that extra HP, so you need to be healed immediately. And you've lost all wrath stacks switching back and forth.

It's perfect the way it is. If anything, I'd say maybe swap the order you get the skills (so move sword oath to 40, shield oath to 30) as shield oath is the more important of the 2 abilities for the job's main role, so you'd want to get it sooner.

I wasn't really having an uninformed discussion so much as I was making an informed statement.

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Originally Posted by Churchill

I wasn't really having an uninformed discussion so much as I was making an informed statement.

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And what was it informed by? You said that WAR does more damage and generates more ST threat, which has been shown numerous times to be pretty damned untrue, assuming the PLD actually uses the tools available to them. Fight or Flight, Circle of Scorn, and Spirits Within are all *amazing* force and threat multipliers. On top of that PLD gets to spam their high enmity combo ad infinitum.

I've run both a PLD and a WAR and run *against* PLD on my WAR: PLD manages better ST threat because they get to use their high enmity combo on a constant basis. If you think it's an informed statement to say that WAR has better ST threat, you're not informed: you're woefully uninformed. The damage dealt between the two is effectively identical with PLD being slightly worse when tanking without a WAR around and slightly better when tanking with a WAR.

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Originally Posted by TouchandFeel

The MRD abilities are a little better. I use Bloodbath+Flight/Fight+Convalescence together in boss fights to slow my health degrading if the healer needs some help.

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Convalescence doesn't seem to improve Blood bath "heals". Blood bath is a health absorption instead of a direct heal, it restores health based on damage done. Convalescence and other +heal% abilites don't appear to improve that type of health restoration at all.

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Originally Posted by Kitru

And what was it informed by? You said that WAR does more damage and generates more ST threat, which has been shown numerous times to be pretty damned untrue, assuming the PLD actually uses the tools available to them. Fight or Flight, Circle of Scorn, and Spirits Within are all *amazing* force and threat multipliers. On top of that PLD gets to spam their high enmity combo ad infinitum.

I've run both a PLD and a WAR and run *against* PLD on my WAR: PLD manages better ST threat because they get to use their high enmity combo on a constant basis. If you think it's an informed statement to say that WAR has better ST threat, you're not informed: you're woefully uninformed. The damage dealt between the two is effectively identical with PLD being slightly worse when tanking without a WAR around and slightly better when tanking with a WAR.

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There's a simple explanation for that. The Warrior you play against is bad and so is the Warrior you play.

There, settled.

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Originally Posted by Churchill

There's a simple explanation for that. The Warrior you play against is bad and so is the Warrior you play.

There, settled.

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OOOOHHHH, I thought you were just misinformed and didn't know what you're talking about. In reality you're just trolling. I'm sorry, my mistake.

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Originally Posted by Giantbane

Convalescence doesn't seem to improve Blood bath "heals". Blood bath is a health absorption instead of a direct heal, it restores health based on damage done. Convalescence and other +heal% abilites don't appear to improve that type of health restoration at all.

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Yeah, I noticed that it doesn't seem to work with Bloodbath.
I use it when, as I stated, the healer needs some help, so Convalescence helps me get more healing from what the healer can do and Bloodbath is just a little extra.
The description for Convalescence is pretty misleading IMO, since it makes it sound like it would work with Bloodbath.

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Originally Posted by Giantbane

OOOOHHHH, I thought you were just misinformed and didn't know what you're talking about. In reality you're just trolling. I'm sorry, my mistake.

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Oh, I don't think anyone would call me misinformed.

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Originally Posted by Churchill

There's a simple explanation for that. The Warrior you play against is bad and so is the Warrior you play.

There, settled.

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So your argument is that your own worldview doesn't match the math that has been provided by 2 separate independent sources as well as supported by my own experiences because I'm incompetent as are everyone I've ever played with.

Occam's Razor would suggest that it's the PLDs you run against that are incompetent, likely because they barely touch Fight or Flight, Circle of Scorn, and Spirits Within. I was able to yank threat off of pretty much any WAR I ran with on my PLD as I was leveling (even those 5 levels my superior) just by spamming Halone and using my CDs. PLD manages *way* better enmity generation. Try actually looking at what you're referring to rather than just deciding via personal fiat that WAR does more damage and generates more enmity. If you actually look at the evidence, I think you'll be surprised that you'll have to eat your words.

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Originally Posted by Giantbane

OOOOHHHH, I thought you were just misinformed and didn't know what you're talking about. In reality you're just trolling. I'm sorry, my mistake.

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I think it's less "misinformed" and more "willfully ignorant".

Surprise, surprise. PLD is fine and has a solid foundation of hate mechanics and you have people feeling "bored" and can't be thankful we don't have the mess WAR players have in their hands. Leave it alone.

Thank goodness simplicity has nothing to do with effectiveness. Leave your WAR BS at the door, this isn't the thread for you to continue your crying in, you have many threads to do so in already.

Back on topic...

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Originally Posted by Lucavern

As others have mentioned, PLD doesn't get that big of a hate margin as some people like to think. My static started working on Titan last night, and our WHM kept pulling hate off me at least once a fight. Wasn't missing Halone combo GCDs, popped CDs appropriately, etc. but the WHM still was pulling that much threat. Add a non-Halone combo requirement into the mix and I wouldn't even bother trying to tank this fight.

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I'm up to turn 2 coil and the only fight so far where I'm at risk of taking hate playing WHM, or losing hate playing PLD is during Titan where it routinely happens once per fight around the second jump. Like I said earlier, this is just from the delayed use of Shroud of Saints. After that point, with continued off-cooldown use of the skill, your hate margin is actually really big. Even if other encounters I have yet to experience wont allow you to let up on Halone at all, which I doubt will ever happen, that is exactly the point of the change I proposed. Can't gain a large enough threat margin to pull off a riot blade combo? Then you're SOL. Heck, it might even open up our stat allocation choices a little more.

Take Caduceus for example, a fight where your WHM is effectively pre-casting Cure II the entire fight, non-stop. Did you know that when the boss splits at around 70% you already have a large enough threat margin to stop acting on it for almost 2 minutes?

A second combo at the expense of one of of our buffs would be a welcome change for me - I'd like something else to do except 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3.

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Originally Posted by Jahaudant

Thank goodness simplicity has nothing to do with effectiveness. Leave your WAR BS at the door, this isn't the thread for you to continue your crying in, you have many threads to do so in already.

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The OP and majority of the first page tries to paint WAR as better design because it has "more buttons to push" and whatnot. What they're asking for is stuff added for the sake of having stuff added rather than because the job needs it. PLD is fine as is with the only change it really needs (at the most) being taking Shield Swipe off the GCD so that it can be rotated with Spirits Within and Circle of Scorn.

I'm not about to agree to the potential ruination of another class I happen to like just because some people feel they aren't pushing enough buttons. I've already seen where that line of thinking leads.

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Originally Posted by Duelle

The OP and majority of the first page tries to paint WAR as better design because it has "more buttons to push" and whatnot.

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I have no idea where you got that implication.

I made it very clear that Paladin is balanced and is in a good spot.

The only thing I would like to see changed on Paladin, and this has been mentioned by many people before. Increase the range of Flash by a few feet. Doesn't need be huge. But it seems really small to me at least. Even unfit was just made an improved ability as get later would be nice.

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Originally Posted by Tanaya

I made it very clear that Paladin is balanced and is in a good spot.

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My reaction was more to the first page, as mentioned in my above post (not to mention I take issue with the OP's premise).

If you tell me "PLD is in a good spot", I'll wholeheartedly agree with you because it is. It has a very solid design that gets the job done and feels like a tank with good mechanics (certainly head and shoulders above 1.0's PLD).

I think its pretty active, I haven't tried warrior yet mainly because that was forced into being a dps class in 11.

If you are actively looking to get in shield swipes. Rotate in your off GC abilities. Cycle your buffs correctly. (Depending on the fight you either pre buff for damage or wait till after damage to give your healers a chance to catch you back up) Avoiding all the red aoe damage. Using your stuns when possible. Keeps me plenty busy.