Paladins need to actually be Paladins.

[Zephyranthes]

Paladins are simply dignified royal guards in this game. The job/class story explains it to you.

[silentwindfr]

what bother me is...actually the cross skill of the CNJ are simply useless for the paladin! let's be honest... do we really need it?
it's a way to keep call it paladin, but on paper... the cross skill are useless!

- protect: casted by the healer of the group.... useless
- cure: at level 50 heal for 250-300 that...awesome... useless
- Raise: only used out of combat.... useless
- Stoneskin: the only one that can be usefull... wait.. i'm joking...seriously most of the time you will get interrupt and it will give you at best a shield of 600-700 hp ( bit more for the very well equiped)

and it's all... what the hell...

[Mcshiggs]

- protect: casted by the healer of the group.... useless
- cure: at level 50 heal for 250-300 that...awesome... useless
- Raise: only used out of combat.... useless
- Stoneskin: the only one that can be usefull... wait.. i'm joking...seriously most of the time you will get interrupt and it will give you at best a shield of 600-700 hp ( bit more for the very well equiped)

Protect: why does the healer have to cast it, I understand if you have a white mage, but if you have a scholar, your protect is just as powerful as theirs, so saying this is like saying protect is useless to a scholar, but yet people still want protect when they have a scholar healing.
Cure: let's look at the Siren fight, sometimes you don't need huge cures to remove the debuff that will charm a player, this can help if your healer is having trouble with the fight. Also if you are offtanking, even small cures tossed on the MT can help if your healers are struggling, I know you will say if they are struggling, then that's their problem, but you are part of the group, so you should be doing whatever you can to help out. It can also be useful to toss on your chocobo companion, they only have a couple thousand hps, so small heals still fill up a decent portion of their bar.
Raise: You aren't always in dungeons, so it could be useful in spirit bond parties, fate grinding, chocobo leveling parties, when people do these, they are usually all about efficiency, so running out of combat and raising can save a bit of time from then releasing and running back.
Stoneskin: Again this is just as useful for you as it is a scholar, but this one gains potency from the gear of the person you are stoneskinning, so it is more effective if you toss it on a high hp warrior, than a low hp paladin, but still a 600 point shield is useful. Toss it on yourself when Titan jumps, toss it on the MT when you are OT, toss it on the bard kiting the slimes, again you can use these abilities to help out a struggling healer.
Just because you don't use them constantly doesn't mean they are useless, and maybe if you neglect them all together as a paladin, you should learn more about what is available to you, and make yourself a better paladin by working them in. Remember you can always change your cross class skills to suit the fight, so if you are in coil, of course don't set raise over foresight but if you are spirit bonding, it could come in handy.

[Archous]

What's worse, is Bards are no longer "support" classes anymore, but rather a DPS class. Sure, you can sing a song, but not like they have always been traditionally. RIP Bard class.
At least Paladin's have nice armor, sword and shield. Bard, imo, is embarrassing to look at. And you hardly ever see their beautiful musical notes like in so many other mmo's. Very disappointed.

[Lemuria]

What's worse, is Bards are no longer "support" classes anymore, but rather a DPS class. Sure, you can sing a song, but not like they have always been traditionally. RIP Bard class.
At least Paladin's have nice armor, sword and shield. Bard, imo, is embarrassing to look at. And you hardly ever see their beautiful musical notes like in so many other mmo's. Very disappointed.

A DPS class with a healer's Limit Break... I'm entirely convinced SE knew where they were going with that one.

While I don't mind my Paladin as she is, I will confess I would have liked to see more skills aimed at being the self-healing supertank. The downside of that is that it basically steals Warrior's tricks and would render them rather more redundant. As a result, I'm happy with things as they are.

[Martin_Arcainess]

what bother me is...actually the cross skill of the CNJ are simply useless for the paladin! let's be honest... do we really need it?
it's a way to keep call it paladin, but on paper... the cross skill are useless!

- protect: casted by the healer of the group.... useless
- cure: at level 50 heal for 250-300 that...awesome... useless
- Raise: only used out of combat.... useless
- Stoneskin: the only one that can be usefull... wait.. i'm joking...seriously most of the time you will get interrupt and it will give you at best a shield of 600-700 hp ( bit more for the very well equiped)

and it's all... what the hell...

Your most likely casting Stone Skin at the wrong time then. I use it quite a lot during battles and the key is to know when to use it. For example Ifrit HM, when he jumps up to do his dash attack cast it then, heck I even had enough time to cast it on a another player.

[Arannon]

Yeah, my gripe has always been the usefulness of our Conjurer third...

I don't necessarily need us to have strong heals or anything, but it'd be nice if our cross class skills didn't boil down to "Foresight, Bloodbath, and that one useful one from Conjurer".

I said it before waaaay back in a much older thread on the topic, that I want to see job traits that alter some of the base cross class skills to make them a bit unique. Like a Paladin's Protect autocovering allies at or below 30% if they're in range...or making the Bloodbath heal not just the paladin, but everyone around him as well. A paladin's base cure casting instantly, and curing allies for more than it could cure the paladin themselves, still not like a full healer, but good for patch-healing. Little things that make old abilities new again based on the job you're drawing the cross class stuff too.

[PixelPirate]

Yeah... OP is surprisingly cogent. It's a simple job, but a crucial one. Is it flashy? Not really. Instant queues, badass mount, everybody loves me, etc. I can live with that.

[Souljacker]

If this wasn't the Final Fantasy series, maybe.

Or it's because the word Paladin has a much more generic meaning and SE is free to design it this way if they wish. What you think a Paladin should be isn't 100% absolute.

Except that Paladin isn't exactly an abstract concept. A paladin is a warrior, who through faith gained the use of white magic. This is the concept of Paladin no matter what source you use, and it's based on the definition dating back to Charlemagne's court of religious warriors. We interpret that in fantasy games as being warriors of *good*, which in Final Fantasy means white magic. This is actually very specific, and it would be very nice of Paladins would continue to be strong warriors that use their few (but moderately powerful) divine spells intelligently.

[KoujiMoreno]

Would be pretty cool if Shield Oath increased self healing by a certain % (not enough to make it so OP it rivals healer's first healing ability), remove savage blade, replace it with an instant cast cure that increases threat if used after fast blade. Ya know...something to make PLD have more of a cleric knight feel.