Post here if you're a paladin who job changed, and why

[Sapphidia]

So please never tell an underleveled character that their thoughts on their class are invalid, we might still have valuable insight or even possibly see where those problems might start. and remember changes at the top also affect those below

You've misread our points. Your opinion on the class and everything you've experienced is as valid as anyone else's, but the community has been talking pretty much exclusively about balance at the endgame. If raiding didn't exist, if Ravana Ex was the last piece of content in the game, Paladins would be viewed as fine. Noone would be whining as much as now, they'd probably just be asking for some minor quality of life improvements.


There's a BIG reason that people are talking about it so much though, and also addresses your other question - why should endgame raiding content matter. Shouldn't all content matter equally? There's two reasons why it matters most:

1 - Currently the top end raiding content is HARD. That is, you have to get 8 players together in a balanced composition and play your classes pretty much perfectly to have any hope of getting down Alex Savage bosses before you start to overgear them from gear obtained from esoterics. This is the point where you're no longer just talking about one class beign slightly better than another. You're talking about bosses literally NOT BEING POSSIBLE with a certain lineup. There's many many precedents in this expansion of players being FORCED to swap away from Paladin, their preferred/favorite class, into Warrior or Dark Knight simply so their group can actually have a hope in hell of killing a boss due to the class balance.

2 - Virtually all content outside of top end savage raiding is designed to be puggable, or done via the duty finder (eventually ravana/bismarck will be there). In this content you can't pick and choose who you group with via DF - sometimes you'll get given a Warrior tank in i210 gear, sometimes you'll get a fresh Paladin in i145. But in both these cases the content is POSSIBLE. People might grumble a bit about a class being worse than another, or that their tank isnt in very good gear, but generally will just knuckle down and do the dungeon. There's no exclusion unless people are being asses. You queue up and do the content, and as long as people don't suck hugely the content gets done regardless of class balance.

In top end raiding though, you form the composition before you go in. You either apply to raidgroups that need a specific class, or you're already part of a static and you choose classes based on who's best at what role. In these situations where min-maxing is basically necessary for success, there were two classes being hugely excluded: Paladin and Astrologian. Players of these classes were denied entry into static groups or told to change class to war/drk or sch/whm because they were OBJECTIVELY WORSE than the other options in terms of "chance of success of the group".

Obviously as content gets outdated and easier then class balance doesnt matter - you get videos of people 4 manning 8-man raids, or doing 8 warrior runs. Even when it's still fairly hard you'll get paladins completing the content simply because they've managed to get more gear and reach the required DPS values via outgearing it to make up for the class deficiency. Noone wants a class that only functions in these situations though.

Are paladins fine and capable and fun in every single encounter in the game outside of Alex Savage? Yep. Are they objectively worse than the other two tanks in terms of the raid requirements on at least 3 of the encounters inside Alex Savage? Yes. That's the issue. The solution might be paladin buffs. It might also be no change to the class but a change in the focus of what's important in the next raid tier. It might be that the next part of Alex Savage comes out and it's all balanced around physical tankbusters and DPS is important. But if they continue down the current route where tank mitigation is basically a non-issue and all that matters for success is how much DPS a tank can push out, there's going to be issues unless they fiddle the kit of the Paladin slightly.

These forums are a place for players to let the devs know their thoughts on class balance. The community is pretty agreed on the problems here (if not the solutions). We make the threads to get the voices heard, because we wholeheartedly believe that, as you put yourself, all content matters equally. Yes, it does. And currently, Paladins are only really able to compete on the old non-raiding content and are feeling excluded from the top content.

It isnt about other players whining and just having to suck it up. It's about knowing that in a lot of cases, currently choosing to play Paladin is telling your static "I'm going to make this harder for us, and we might not even kill this boss purely because I have chosen to play Paladin rather than WAR/DRK". No player wants to feel like they're intentionally dragging their team down.

[Kiara]

1 - Currently the top end raiding content is HARD. That is, you have to get 8 players together in a balanced composition and play your classes pretty much perfectly to have any hope of getting down Alex Savage bosses before you start to overgear them from gear obtained from esoterics. This is the point where you're no longer just talking about one class beign slightly better than another. You're talking about bosses literally NOT BEING POSSIBLE with a certain lineup. There's many many precedents in this expansion of players being FORCED to swap away from Paladin, their preferred/favorite class, into Warrior or Dark Knight simply so their group can actually have a hope in hell of killing a boss due to the class balance...

Are paladins fine and capable and fun in every single encounter in the game outside of Alex Savage? Yep. Are they objectively worse than the other two tanks in terms of the raid requirements on at least 3 of the encounters inside Alex Savage? Yes. That's the issue. The solution might be paladin buffs. It might also be no change to the class but a change in the focus of what's important in the next raid tier. It might be that the next part of Alex Savage comes out and it's all balanced around physical tankbusters and DPS is important. But if they continue down the current route where tank mitigation is basically a non-issue and all that matters for success is how much DPS a tank can push out, there's going to be issues unless they fiddle the kit of the Paladin slightly...

It isnt about other players whining and just having to suck it up. It's about knowing that in a lot of cases, currently choosing to play Paladin is telling your static "I'm going to make this harder for us, and we might not even kill this boss purely because I have chosen to play Paladin rather than WAR/DRK". No player wants to feel like they're intentionally dragging their team down.

Great post Sapphidia. Totally agree with your thoughts on the current situation with Paladins in Alexander Savage.

I hope the Dev Team sees your post.